Problems with chipping

[FlashGP]

One day I will Learn to be Patient.
One day I will Learn to be Patient.
One Day I WILL LEARN to BE PATIENT!!!!  :-(

Just finished my Weiland Star entry to the 2018 Queensland Faceting Comp.  It took me about 6 hours to polish all the shallow angle facets into place starting with the facets next to the crown.  I inspected the stone off the machine last night, marked the remaining 4 meet points that needed tweeking and tonight finished them.

That is when the unthinkable happened.  After removing the stone from the dop and dropping it into a bath of acetone to soak off the glue, I decided I could speed up proceedings by lifting up the stone and scraping the thick layer of glue on the pavilion a bit with my trusty knife to thin it down.

You guessed it, one slip and I have cleaved a flake from between 2 of the A Row facets on the crown.  :-( :-(

Nothing left to do now but try to hide the blemish with a well placed claw,

OR

buy a concave facetor and cut a row of concave facets starting with the fracture (rather expensive for a bit of quartz).

The last option appeals.  I can probably save the stone by turning it into an 8 point star on the edge of the faceting wheel.  The flake is right where the cut would go.  :-)

Thanks Makky for showing that it can be done. 

Any tips for a fool who is not patient enough to keep his knife away from the glue on the back of his stone. 

Happy Faceting
Not-feeling-so-Flash-now.

[MakkyBrown]

I feel your pain Flash, I just dropped a large 20ct+ topaz I cut on the floor and chipped it . I dopped it back up to cut some new facets to fix and missed my target area with a stupid mistake now I have two extra rows of facets to cut to fix.
I mostly de-dop the finished stone with a cigarette lighter and heat the dop shaft about 20mm back from the stone. Just need to make sure you hold the dop end with paper towel as it gets a bit warm. i won't put a flame near a stone anymore.

[MakkyBrown]

I have also released stones from dextone/jb quik by boiling. I don't like the stone on the bottom of a saucepan so I put the dop/stone in a plastic container with water covering the stone and float in the saucepan full of water. All water cold to start and boil till the water in the plastic container boils, remove with tweezers/tongs and pull off the stone with dry paper towel.  I've removed a good few peridot stones like this with no problems. Doesn't work that well for big stones.

[FlashGP]

Thanks Makky.  Does the glue come off the bottom of the stone at the same time?

I place a small piece of bluetac in the bottom of my cone dop so the glue doesn't go all the way to the cutelet.  It helps release the stone from the dop when the dop is heated. 

After that I drop the stone on acetone and have to wait overnight. 

This time my first attempt at transferring the stone wasn't successful due to oxidation / contamination of the two parts at the mouth of each tube. 

After squeezing some out of each tube of Dextrone so I had some fresh parts to use.  The transfer worked but I had a double layer of glue to remove from the Pavillion.

Regards
Flash

[MakkyBrown]

Thanks Makky.  Does the glue come off the bottom of the stone at the same time?

I place a small piece of bluetac in the bottom of my cone dop so the glue doesn't go all the way to the cutelet.  It helps release the stone from the dop when the dop is heated. 

After that I drop the stone on acetone and have to wait overnight. 

This time my first attempt at transferring the stone wasn't successful due to oxidation / contamination of the two parts at the mouth of each tube. 

After squeezing some out of each tube of Dextrone so I had some fresh parts to use.  The transfer worked but I had a double layer of glue to remove from the Pavillion.

Regards
Flash

I just completely fill the cone, with dextone if the mix is out not close to 50:50 it will not set properly. I quite often heat set it in the oven at 35-40degrees to speed things up and make sure it cures properly. 
Mostly the stones come out fairly clean and I just use my finger nail to remove extra. But sometime not(when heating the dop with lighter) and will need to use acetone to remove it but still a lot quicker than full soaking the stone off.

[FlashGP]

Thanks.  I have only been heating the dop as for a heat sensitive stone,  just enough to release the glue from the dop and leaving the stone tepid like yoy are just about to feed it to a baby.

Regards
Flash