Best way to Sapphire viewing

[darryn63]

Hi can anyone advise the best way to view sapphires as the iPhone torch and any torch is too bright… is there any dish or something available?

[mehoose]

Well, there's always hold up to the sun method.

What an old timer at the club made was a small box and in the middle, he'd made a hole and had a light mounted directly under the hole. I'm trying to remember if he had a circle of glass inserted for a level platform to just sit the stone on or if he used the bulb itself as the surface to put the stone on.
This way his fingers weren't on it and he'd just rotate the stone at different angles while looking for internal issues. I have no idea what the strength of the globe was but the physical size was more like a small globe for say a car or control panel.
I think it was battery powered.

Aussie Sapph don't seem to have any but have you tried one of these? There's a small nose cone to direct the light source into the stone as opposed to lighting up everything around it.

[geowork]

Obviously if you have a setup where the light shines directly through the sapphire to your eye, that can work. But sometimes this is not what is required. The light can be too bright and internal features can be missed. There is not enough contrast (everything is "bright" and you can be partly blinded by the lamp) or the chance of oblique light to show a fracture or inclusion. Try holding or being close to the light source, but don't look directly at the light, eg have your eye just below the top of the penlight, or just above the rim of a desk lamp shade. Hold the stone on the edge of the penlight or desk lamp shade. The sapphire should now be well light up. Use a head loupe!

[Aussie Sapphire]

When we were mining sapphire, we had two things we used a lot.


One was a light table with a round magnifier above - this was a portable version that was really handy.  This was a commercially made unit but really old.


The other thing we used on the larger rough was a fibre optic light so you could direct the light source around as needed. These were made for us by a bloke who has surely given up the ghost now (he used to advertise in Facet Talk I remember but quite a few years ago now).  Was just a little stand with the light that used to sit on the desk and then quite a long optic fibre that you could manipulate behind the rough to see the flaws.  Those were very useful.


cheers
Leah

[Chrisoo]

Ive got a bathroom mirror I sit outside on the table and use it as a sorting table. The natural light reflects back

[Rusted]

This is what I use.
It's a thin LED panel, easy to just dump a cup full of stones on it and sort through them.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000411811300.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.4f08632dPP0hxT&algo_pvid=cb80ead5-0e16-4fb7-9cf4-767bdbcd15af&algo_exp_id=cb80ead5-0e16-4fb7-9cf4-767bdbcd15af-10&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2210000001698244018%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21AUD%2118.85%2115.09%21%21%21%21%21%4021031a5516600877410781182e426d%2110000001698244018%21sea&curPageLogUid=thqzPxjBFKx8

[MakkyBrown]

Nice Rusted. This one looks the cheapest if anyone is buying. $13.06+gst, make sure you click on the correct one as it defaults to the cheapest which is a different item.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000924813401.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000014.10.77e78457JEBBjK&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.281175.0&scm_id=1007.40050.281175.0&scm-url=1007.40050.281175.0&pvid=041c39f1-f070-473e-865f-c63c1e515e69&_t=gps-id:pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.281175.0,pvid:041c39f1-f070-473e-865f-c63c1e515e69,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238107%231934&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000026741417546%22%2C%22sceneId%22%3A%2230050%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21AUD%2119.0%2110.63%21%21%21%21%21%402101d1b816600919888913333e1e59%2112000026741417546%21rec

[darryn63]

Brilliant everyone… really helpful thanks so much.

[pc bowe]

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