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Author Topic: Proston garnets  (Read 17038 times)

Lefty

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Re: Proston garnets
« Reply #15 on: March 18, 2016, 01:39:15 PM »
Cheers Andrew.

I've got a dark one on the dop now and I don't want to count my chickens yet because it's not finished - but things look good so far. This stone as a piece of rough would have completely failed a white paper test - being black unless strongly backlit -  but appears otherwise flawless.

It was long and flattish so I cut an extremely simple baguette with only four big facets on the pavilion as reflectors, cut in at 38 degress. Not sure of the exact L/W ratio but it's a pretty long rectangle. I was pleasantly surprised after polishing when I inspected it - even though where the crown will go was still completely covered in dark grey epoxy blocking any light, the stone lit up quite nicely without being backlit, glowing like a red hot coal.

As near as I can discern, the effect seems to be coming from the long keel - the light appears to be easily entering the lower part of the long blade-shaped pavilion from the side (since it can't possibly be coming in through the top yet) and actually reflecting upward into the crown area. I'm going to cut a simple, low-angled step crown and see what happens.

If you see a dark garnet that has a thin wedge, you'll see how easily visible it is to see through that part even if the rest of the stone is practically black.

I remembered ktmman posting an image of faceted garnets he had found at Proston and in the photo they glowed quite nicely. I couldn't see the side profile but they were cut in an emerald fashion.

Anyway, here's hoping this might actually turn out ok.

Lefty

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Re: Proston garnets
« Reply #16 on: March 20, 2016, 07:52:44 AM »
Yeah - sort of but not really. It gave a bit of false hope. It does appear to work better than the first dark one I cut which was just done in a round brilliant.

At certain angles some facets really do glow vivid red so I'm on the right track - just need to keep playing around.

 

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