Where can I get rough stones cut and polished?

[blue_diamonds]

I live in New York, and I have a 14.1 carat pink sapphire rough stone. I would like to know where I can go to get it cut and polished, how much would it cost? How much would I be able to sell it for, as a rough and a cut and polished stone? I am not looking for concave cut stones, just an excellent cutter who is honest and trustworthy. Thank you for your help.

 

[chrono]

Not many vendors will accept "outside" stones but I know Jerry Newman still does. An excellent lapidary who charges very reasonable rates.

 

[blue_diamonds]

Thanks. I've posted a picture of the rough stone. Does he have a page here?

 

[chrono]

http://www.gemartservices.com/about.htm
His email is listed on his website.

 

[davi_el_mejor]

Pete of http://www.westerngem.com may also provide this service.

 

[PrecisionGem]

Just based on that photo, I would say that the stone is not facet grade. Again, it's hard to tell much from a picture, especially with an unknown light source.

 

[blue_diamonds]

Thanks for the replies everyone. What would a facet grade look like?

 

[chrono]

Facet grade material is usually transparent and quite clean of inclusions when louped.

 

[blue_diamonds]

O0O0O0O0O0O00000OOoooo ok I love learning!!!!! Thanks!! How about these light blue sapphires? Also, since they may not be facet grade, do you think that it/ they can be cut into cabochons?

 

[Pandora II]

Definitely not facet grade - if you want to try and cab one for fun then it might be possible but will probably cost more to have it cut than the stone is worth.

Good rough - especially sapphire - is in short supply and good pieces are expensive.

Where did you get the rough?

 

[autumngems]

I've had some cut by Michael Edgett of the The Gem Shoppe and also by Bespoke gems (Doug Menadue), both awesome cutters.

 

[chrono]

I'm sorry to say that the sapphire rough are not facet grade. Might be tumbled as cabochon but even then, they are likely to be opaque stones.

 

[blue_diamonds]

Thank you everyone for the feedback in both lapidaries and stone quality. Below is a picture of an amethyst roughstone, I believe that this is probably of a better quality than both the pink and blue sapphire. If the pink and blue sapphire's can't be sold for profit as either a rough or polished gem, then they're fun to have around. The amethyst looks better though. Right?

 

[minousbijoux]

Hi b_d

You may want to slow down and do some research first. If your goal is to find high quality rough, have it cut and sell it for profit, you might want to look around, and read up on it. There are good discussions on this board about the difficulty in identifying rough that will cut the desired color, clarity, size and shape. The lapidaries, who have done this for years, talk about still being surprised by how rough cuts (both good and bad), and most of us have little experience in this area compared to them. For example, would you know the level of inclusions that would be acceptable in rough, or that would make it infeasible to cut? Would you know how the shape would affect the possibilities for recovery and shape? If you do decide to pursue this path, do it with money that is expendable, because you want some pretty cut stones and not because you think you'll make your money back. I hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[anythingorange]

blue_diamonds,

I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on the purchase of rough material, but I did want to mention that I always enjoy looking at the rough that is on precisiongem.com. If you look at any of the species under the "Gemstones" tab, you'll see some pretty rough at the top of the page. Enjoy!

 

[Pandora II]

Do you even know if the amethyst is natural or synthetic? The colour is not a valuable one and again you may pay more for the cutting than the stone is worth.

Assessing rough requires considerable experience and expertise. I'm a gemmologist and have many years of experience looking at cut stones as a personal collector and as a buyer for a company. Buying rough still frightens the life out of me and I have yet to take that step.

Even if you do find a piece of rough that is capable of producing a decent stone, your chances of selling it at a profit are slim. Check out the prices of similar colours of amethyst in a cut stone on eBay as that is probably going to be your best market if you don't have access to the right markets. Once you calculate the cost of your rough, plus the cost of a cutter then you are going to almost certainly make a loss.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but I have a friend who decided to become a gem-dealer recently in the hopes of making a lot of money whilst knowing NOTHING about gemstones (she thought a 'brilliant cut' was called a 'billionaire cut'). She spent money she didn't have on glass-filled rubies, synthetic amethyst and some very nice blue sapphires - only they were 0.15ct each and she'd paid retail +++ for them. She was also asking me to ID every stone for her.

If you want to do this, then you will need to do some serious study if you want to avoid being burnt.

 

[blue_diamonds]

All stones are natural, untreated stones. I have some more rough sapphire that look a lot better than the previous sapphire's. I honestly don't mind the stones being of a poor quality, I love gemstones and even the rough, not so jewellery grade stones are enjoyable for me to have. I have more rough, and a few polished stones. I'm looking to get some lapidary supplies of my own, so having poorer quality stones come in handy in that sense. The main draw back is making space for the equipment.

 

[minousbijoux]

I'm looking to get some lapidary supplies of my own, so having poorer quality stones come in handy in that sense.

Huh? I'm afraid to say this doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm sure the lapidaries on here will tell you that they won't touch "poorer quality stones." Once again, I suggest you learn a bit more before you spend any more on rough stones.

 

[deorwine]

You may want to see if there are any lapidary societies in your area. I learned how to cab from my local lapidary society when I was in graduate school -- they had workshops once a month and provided equipment, and there were lots of patient and wonderful members who were willing to teach a newbie how to cab.

Though whether you will be happy with cabs from that material depends a lot on, well, what you'll be happy with. I would not expect them to be worth anything. I would also personally rather cab a beautiful opaque jasper with pretty patterns (I'll see if I can get a pic of the one I cabbed) than the (first) sapphires you pictured, but that's my personal preference obviously. (Though I will tell you from experience: obsidian is very pretty and makes lovely cabs but is a BAD idea for a first cabbing stone!)

Faceting is a whole other beast (and something I don't have experience with, although I could probably have learned that as well from the lapidary society -- all my knowledge comes from lurking on other boards). If you really want to learn to facet, you should probably invest in some synthetics or some cheap quartz (e.g., the amethyst you had, perhaps, although since I'm not a faceter I really couldn't say). I get the sense (maybe an actual faceter can chime in) that trying to facet heavily included stuff, like the stuff you first posted, is much more of a headache than starting out with a nice clean synthetic or quartz.

 

[bobsiv]

Hi, I'm a hobby lapidary and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about getting started. I also live in a big city (Washington DC). You don't need a lot of space to get started, but you do need to make a pretty significant investment if you want to facet (3-5K to do it right). In my opinion, the stones you posted aren't really worth cutting or cabbing (sorry). If you want to buy rough you're better off going with an established online vendor. There aren't any great deals or large profits to be had this way, but it will save you a lot of frustration in the beginning until you get better at evaluating rough. Also, when deciding if a rough stone is worth cutting remember that a general rule of thumb is that 80% of the material will be lost during the cutting process. It can be a lot more if there are inclusions or odd shapes, but it's seldom less than 65% even under the best circumstances.

 

[blue_diamonds]

Thanks again for the advice, I'm not new to gemstones but new to rough. Over the past few days I've learned more about rough and feel a little more confident in purchasing rough. Hey Bobsiv, I do have some more questions. I now know that the pink sapphire and light blue sapphire are poor quality and won't yield decent stones as cabochons or facets. But how about the darker blue sapphires and amethyst? All are natural, and to me, seem to be translucent enough to yield a nice faceted stone. Or are they poor quality as well?

 

[bobsiv]

Hey Diamonds, in general, there's very little market for sub-carat colored stones, especially precision cut ones (there are exceptions; tsavorite and such). The sapphires look too flat, dark, zoned, and small to me. I have seen that type of rough before, and unless they're a lot bigger than they look (4-5 carats each) then it's probably not worth faceting. You can try the white paper test to see if the stones are too dark: put the stones on a white sheet of paper and shine a flashlight at them from about one foot away. If they cast a blue shadow, they're light enough to cut (although not necessarily big enough). If the shadow doesn't have blue in it, forget it. This is a good test for any material that can be too dark like garnet and amethyst.

The amethyst would probably cut a nice stone. That's actually the color I prefer to cut although most people would say it's a too light. Unfortunately, it also looks like it's pretty small. If it's less than five carats then it will finish at less than one carat. With quartz I try to stay above 2 carats cut weight, it's hard to get more than $40/carat for even the best quality quartz so it has to be larger to be worth the time it takes to cut. Also, quartz is one of the most difficult and time-consuming materials to cut. It fouls up the cutting wheels worse than any other stones too, so it has a high material cost. I can't speak for other lapidaries, but when I take a custom order for a quartz I always add a quartz tax to my normal rate. All that aside, I do think you could get a nice stone out of that rough, it just probably wouldn't be profitable. if you want to have it cut anyways I suggest contacting 'thatsbrilliant' on Etsy. He's the best quartz cutter I know. Good luck and feel free to pm me if you have other questions.

 

[deorwine]

bobsiv, I'm not the OP but I just wanted to thank you for those helpful comments. I'd heard of the white paper test but didn't know how to apply it in practice, and I had no idea quartz was hard to facet! So I'm just curious (don't need to know for my own experience, but still): what would you recommend for a beginning faceter, then?

 

[blue_diamonds]

Wow pricescope is great! Thanks for the feedback. The pink sapphire, (poor quality) is 14.1 carats, the light blue sapphires, (poor quality as well) 3 pieces totalling 13.09 carats, the amethyst is 24.45 carats, and the darker blue sapphires, 10 pieces totalling 6.39 carats. You guys are great.

 

[bobsiv]

@Deorwine: The usual recommendations for a beginning faceter are light to medium saturated garnets, sunstone or other feldspar, or light aqua. Some also say orange-yellow-green tourmaline, but buying the rough is so tricky that I wouldn't include it myself. All of these fall in the sweet spot of price where you won't feel like you wasted the 15 or so hours it takes to cut a stone in the beginning, but they're not so expensive that a low yield or a few mistakes will keep you up at night. Also, they all cut and polish easily and have the same hardness in every direction. My personal recommendation is garnet for the high refractive index; the downsides are inclusions that can sneak past even experienced cutters and the difficulty of finding rough that isn't too dark. The new blue feldspar would be a close second. I was told to start with rough around 10 carats and aim for two finished; big enough to see the meets easily but small enough that it won't take forever to cut.

@blue_diamonds: Well at 24 carats you could definitely have a nice sized stone cut. It looks like there are some inclusions on the right and clear areas on the left that would have to ground out, but 4-5 carats finished should be doable unless the inclusions are deeper than they look in the picture.

 

[gsellis]

bobsiv, I'm not the OP but I just wanted to thank you for those helpful comments. I'd heard of the white paper test but didn't know how to apply it in practice, and I had no idea quartz was hard to facet! So I'm just curious (don't need to know for my own experience, but still): what would you recommend for a beginning faceter, then?

At the risk of Ella beating me to death with a heavy chain, here is a resource most beginning faceters get directed to eventually

http://www.faceters.com/askjeff/

Jeff is no longer with us. Jeff has strong opinions and some of them were also directed to the products he sold, so not everything there is agreed on by many. But it is the best online 'bible' of questions faceters ask, and indirectly relates to the thread.

Personally, I don't belong to the only cut native material school for beginners. Quartz is cheap, but Dollar Tree glass is a dollar for more than you can cut (Roy Meade calls it the Dollar Tree Mine). Part of the beginning of the craft is learning the faceting machine and how the index gears relate to the facets. Basic beginner mistakes usually start with selecting the wrong index and putting a facet in the wrong place (or mismatching the angle while reading a schematic).

But yes, quartz is kind of hard (besides the fouling). It polishes better with oxides than diamond. Cerium works best and Chromium works really well. On a forum Bobsiv and I belong to, we just had a discussion on quartz twinning and the challenge it makes during polishing. What happens is that some facets will get chevron patterns appear as you polish them. I remedied it once by polishing with 100k diamond on the facets that had it to fix it.

And as for garnet, OMG... it has to be the easiest stone to polish. Just touch it to 50k diamond and Presto! A mirror! If you want to feel like a faceting god, start with garnet.

I do kind of disagree with sunstone and feldspar though. I think it is more of second week material. There is a cleavage plane there that takes a bit of "show me" or a good listener to orient to cut it. If your facets get close to that plane, you get flaking, cracking, and all sorts of destruction going on. Diamonds also have a perfect cleavage plane, so there is some skill and practice learning to orient the material for cutting. But.... all faceters are different. You should see the discussions we have about which polishing lap or machine is best. Everyone has their own style and it changes what works best for them.

 

[Barrett]

Great post George!
When it comes to the white paper test and evaluating rough I found John Bailey's site the most helpful. He actually removed it not to long ago and I pleaded with him to bring it back so it could help others as well as it helped when I was new.
It shows how to properly do the white paper test and candling, sidelighting, etc.
http://facetingacademy.com/apprentice-area/rough-class/

 

[blue_diamonds]

Hey everyone, it's a beautiful day over here in New York and just wanted to give an update on those roughs. I have all of them, the last ones arriving today. The amethyst is really nice, better in person than in pictures. It has slight color zoning but nothing to worry about because it's near the edge that'll be cut away anyhow. Slight inclusions but again near the edge. Overall, I'm happy with it. As far as the pink sapphire goes, we all know that it's poor quality so there's that one, the light blue ones are not translucent and will basically give an opaque look, but who knows, maybe once tumbled or cabbed with a nice polish they'll be decent. The bluer ones are smaller than thought but nice nonetheless. Once cut could yield some ok sidestones or larger micropave. In conclusion, I'm relatively happy with my first gemstone purchases and will announce more for the community to give feedback on if needed. My qualities will undoubtedly improve and in time I'll sell some. Enjoy your day everyone.

 

[MieleMelograno]

There is another option of things to do with non facet grade stones ... importing rough gems to have faceted has brought a lot of stones across our desk that aren't facet/cabbing grade. You can have the stones set as they are as unique works of nature I do this on a weekly basis for people on etsy. It's a fun way of using "the entire animal" so to speak