How to Cut and Polish Gemstones Without Machines
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2016
- This is a quick video tutorial on how to cut and polish a low hardness gemstone (in this case, Fluorite) using materials that you can find around the home and at your local hardware store.
-What you need:
-Metal/Glass polish
-A chopping board (or something similar)
-Sandpaper in 4 different grits (the tutorial uses 180, 400, 600 and 1200 grit)
-A clean cloth
-Tap water
www.lawsongems.com
Below is a list of some common gems you could use this technique with (the softer the better in most cases). The top of the list will be the hardest to deal with and the most time consuming.
Lapis Lazuli 5 - 6
Turquoise 5 - 6
Apatite 5
Chrome Diopside 5 - 6
Obsidian 5 - 5.5
Larimar 4.5 - 5
Charoite 4.5 - 5
Rhodochrosite 4
Variscite 4 - 5
Ammolite 4
Fluorite 4
Azurite 3.5 - 4
Malachite 3.5 - 4
Sphalerite 3.5 - 4
Calcite 3
Coral 3 - 4
Verdite 3
Lepidolite 2.5 - 3
Pearl 2.5 - 4.5
Chrysocolla 2 - 4
Seraphinite 2 - 4
Amber 2 - 2.5
MIND BLOWN. I've been doing lapidary for nearly 20 years and I never knew anything like this was possible! You sir, are my hero.
Haha thanks for the compliment! Funnily enough the video came about because one of my viewers wanted to know how to polish his fluorite rough, so after a bit of brainstorming and experimentation I came up with this process :)
I love that cutting board. My parents are into doing home-made stuff, and they have a lot of random low-grade low-hardness rocks they can play with. This is gonna be fun, thanks!
Haha no worries, it is amazing how many people actually have that same cutting board =P
I used this method and it works. Thank you for the tutorial! I had a gemologist who told me I can't smooth a piece of fluorite I have, ha ha showed him!!!
Haha great! Glad I could be of service :P
Why you stopped making gem videos brother you are awesome at it you should do some more videos on crystals to stay blessed
Haha thanks for your support, I am still making videos, but just when I have time between running my gem business, my consulting business, teaching and too many other project I like to take on :P . I am just about finished one on Australian sapphire though so keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks ;)
m.th-cam.com/video/fxWuDJenOGw/w-d-xo.html
Great video just found you as was looking as want to try to find some tith my boys and was wondering how to cut and polished with out the machines
Thankyou very informative and simple to follow. Keep them coming! Have to look for your Sapphire ones love to go and find some need a road trip for thst as am in Albury NSW Australia and need to go up North also Coonabarabran has amethyst love to find some
I just came across your videos.. thank you 😊
@@Lawsongems hope you continue on your amazing gem journey
Thank you so much for the video. You saved my 40yr old sleeping beauty turquoise ring! It had 3 big cracks all over the top. It worked great!
Haha great, I love hearing about other peoples success stories! Glad I could help :)
Please tall me turquoise stone sendpaper tipe please ❤️❤️❤️
Oooo the allusive sleeping beauty ñ turquoise! Awesome!
Thank you, Lawson,
I'm actually trying to recreate the skills of Circa 600 A.D. craftsmen from Anglo-Saxon England.
My task is to replicate the somewhat crudely finished Garnet stones inlaid into a museum quality replica of the helmet found in the Sutton Hoo ship burial. This requires removing the facets from modern Garnet stones, so I can inlay squares of flat stone into the eyebrows. It's many years since I last worked with Garnets using only basic hand crafts, and you've confirmed that what I'm attempting is possible.
Thanks again,
Rick Bear
in late 600s England
that sounds preety cool! any news on how it turned out?
@emotional_support_ghost thanks for asking. Major surgery, followed by emergency DIY repairs to my washing machine and tumble dryer, and then rewiring my old Land Rover have put my schedule a long way behind 😔. Hopefully, I'll have some news by the end on April. Hopefully, I'll have some pictures by the end of April (assuming I can post pictures to this forum).
@@rickbear7249 you cant post on here but that is preety cool! best of luck and if you do upload pictures somewhere feel free to link it! im a black Smith and love historical and fantasy kinda stuff so an old helmet having gems refitted sounds preety cool
@@emotional_support_ghost9787 I'll post a link as soon as I have some pictures.
@@rickbear7249 cool :D
FANTASTIC!!!! I am so thankful that I came across your channel! I have been collecting for a few years and am about to start learning the art of wire wrapping. Now I feel confident that there will definately be some beautiful creations thanks to you! I look forward to exploring more of your videos and updates!
+Tiptoepoms Haha glad you enjoyed it :)
More tutorial videos. Please! You are a great teacher and I would love to see more of what you know and can pass on. Thank you for what you have already posted.
Haha no worries, I definitely plan to do more videos when I can find the time :)
Perfect timing! Just bought a nice piece of rough with one side that needs to be cleaned up a bit for the jewelry project I had in mind. Don't need to send it off to a lapidarist now. Thanks so much!
No worries :)
Nice video! Thx for your time. Looking forward to seeing your amber cutting - polishing video.
Am deeply grateful for this vid. Your passion and craftsmanship speak volumes in your 'soft' manner! Liked and subscribed!! Big thanks to whoever requested this tutorial too!!!
Haha thanks for your support. There is nothing better than doing a job you are passionate about :)
Amen to that! I used to know what that felt like. Made a small mistake years back. Stood up for myself/my people but in an 'excessively animated manner' and have been in a sort of 'exile' ever since. There are few things in life as painful/traumatic as being free but unable to do the thing that you know you were born to do. But such is life. We live, we make mistakes, we learn and we grow from those experiences hoping one day someone will look upon us with mercy and give us a chance again. I bear no grudges or ill will to those involved as I wouldn't be the person I am today without that experience. Anywho, sorry to take up your time with my long-winded whining. Peace, love and keep up the great work. I hope to buy one of your ARTifacts in time to come!!!!
I've just used this technique to reduce the culet on a little synthetic gemstone and it has worked a treat! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I can now send the ring back to its owner and I'm sure it will bring a smile to her face.
That's great! I'm glad the video was able to help you out 🙂
I am absolutely amazed by this video. I never would've guessed you could shape a stone so nicely by hand. Do you think this polishing technique would work to give a nice shine to the cut side of a solid geode? Thank you!
Thanks :) I think this would be a good way to buff up a geode as, if you were to start with a very course grit sandpaper you would avoid the stress of putting it on a grinder which may just cause it to fall apart. That said it will be a long process, I have found on the couple of pieces of quartz I have tried that it is not hard to get a smooth surface with a bit of shine but you will have a hard time getting the same finish as with actual lapidary equipment when the stone is as hard as quartz.
man always give himself better hand than that of a woman ever could sorry but yeah polish on!
@@lukegamerdonkey6663 yes, we wear them better .
Just what I was looking for. Simple and with excellent results. Much appreciated.
Glad I could help :)
Great video - I have some green fluorite that I found at a local mine so as it's raining outside it sounds like a good way to spend my afternoon. Thanks.
This is just what I needed to cut and polish my stones, thank you very much for uploading an easy to follow video 👍
No worries, I'm glad I could be of assistance 😁
Thank you! I've been looking for something like this!
yeaaaaaa! wow! how simple! THANKS! just what I was looking for.
Oh gossshhh I need to try this, I've got a piece of green fluorite that I've been wanting to smooth out. Thank you for this tutorial
Hi, I'm Polish and i approve this video
Haha, thank you very much 😁
Great! I use sandpaper for almost all of my stone needs, but didn’t know I could use it for quartz and other hard minerals.
Thanks for inspiring my next project!
Hi Scott, you may struggle a little with quartz in getting a high polish (the stone in the video is fluorite), I have had some success on quartz (better than I expected) but to get a really good polish on quartz you will need a higher grit than 1200 and a proper lapidary final polish like cerium oxide. That said I have polished up a couple of old worn quartz crystals using the method in the video and have been quite happy with the results.
Yes! I have fluorite and I’m trying to make jewelry but I dident know what kind of stone you were using!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I started on the subject of gems and what you teach helps me a lot.
Thanks...
Great to here I could be of assistance :)
Thank you for your concise and inspirational tutorial.
You're very welcome 😁
Thank you for this . Going to shine up my stone collection!
I'm definitely going to try this
simple yet amazing ! i didn't know that this technique also works for hardness up to 6 , that's awesome ! can't wait for the next vid :D
Yep, though it will get progressively more difficult. Most glass is around hardness 6 so by using the glass polish for the final stage it limits how hard you can go with such basic materials.
Low key flex with the Rolex, love it. Good job.
🤣
Oh wow! Thank you so much for doing this video! I have a piece of fluorite that I bought that had been shaped into a point. Needless to say, the tip got chipped! I may try this method to bring it back to it's glory!
Very cool. I would have never thought this would work! Great video!
No worries :)
This is so cool! I did not know one could facet manually! At least the softer stones. Thanks for sharing. I will share on my blog in the near future as I am sure my readers will be fascinated!
Haha thanks :). Though very rudimentary I guess you could still call it faceting haha, but it is a great way to dabble in the art without forking out 1000's of dollars and spending countless hours on it ;)
You could also do it on harder minerals, it will just take more time to get there. I have done lapis, rock crystal and topaz as well. So it's possible through this same process. It just takes longer, that's it.
Awesome! Can't wait to watch all your other videos!
Glad you like them!
Just came across your video. Clear and concise. Thank you!
Not a problem :) Glad you enjoyed the video!
Please upload a video in which cutting,shaping & polishing are done without machines for any type of stone (Some you may exclude).
& This one was cool ! :)
Thanks :) I will definitely try to upload more like this.
I ground another glass "gem" yesterday and found I got the best polish when I let the glass dust build up and stay on the sandpaper (in other words, don't use water or rinse the paper off in the last stage of sanding). Not only is this method cheaper and easier than buying polishing compound, but it also keeps the facet edges sharp (looks better, imo). Fluorite is softer than glass, so you should be able to polish them quite well with the last fine grade of sandpaper that already has glass dust build-up.
*Just remember that the dust can be harmful if inhaled.* Water will stop almost all of it from becoming airborne so even if you don't rinse the sandpaper with water try keeping it wet or wear appropriate face protection if you are not using water at all.
But for sure this should work, with the glass being harder than fluorite it will essentially act as a fine grit. A similar principle applies to cutting and polishing diamonds as the only natural thing that can scratch a diamond is another diamond haha!
I have a rounded black stone with a bit of a scratch I'll try this on. Thank you for this simple instruction.
Finally found what I was looking for. Tx!
in my country, they use dried banana leaf to polish stones, and some use metal or glass polishes (autosol) and polish it with newspaper for better shine. and some also use leather skins for polishing..
yeah i guess u heard about fossil wood that turn into a stone. its actually a palm tree that through alot of geological activities million of years. here in borneo we have those type of stones..
Sounds like an interesting technique :)
yeah mate, but take a lot of time n patience..
Charles Lawson
+Zynary Zaidi my we chat I'd irsadkhan55
Zynary Zaidi
Awesome video. Hope u continue with this type of content
Thanks :) I will be posting more tutorials similar to this one soon. The next one will be on how to drill stone to make beads and pendants which will work well if you have already polished a stone with this technique.
cant wait for the next video!! You are such a great help!
that was easy explained well and quick. thank you for posting
Thanks so much 😁. I'm glad you found the video helpful!
thank you kind sir for making the video. never knew it was this easy to polish gems.
Happy to help!
This is great. I have some raw amethysts that I want to keep as natural as possible but just polish of some of the sides. Would this technique work for them?
Hi Kristen, this technique does work to some degree on quartz, though it is a lot more more given its hardness of 7. I have polished a couple of small quartz crystals that were very heavily worn and got a nice sheen but not a mirror finish. That said I wasn't very patient with the quartz so spending more time might make a difference :)
Lawson Gems I have i rose quarts
Lawson Gems I want to try this on a huge piece of rose quartz I have. It’s really big and I think it would look AWESOME if it was finished. It’s about the size of a newborn lol. Would you ever try this method on something big?
@@monamiller536 why not? be prepared for it to take weeks if not longer if you don't want RSI
@@marypinon3602 me too
This is fabulous, thank you!
Haha thanks :)
Thank you for the great video, very informative and told me everything i was curious about.
One Thumbs up for you, sir!
Haha thanks :)
Awesome! I found your video very interesting, would definitely like to see more!
Thanks, I am almost finished work on a new documentary so keep an eye out ;)
Love it! But fluorite is pretty soft as mentioned in the description (~4). Something like quartz (hardness ~7) will take more to polish, I supposed.
I'm wondering if this would even work for quartz or if you'd want to start on a lower grit
@@nickvinylmlpfan2995 I've tried hand sanding quarts with like 600 or 800 rating sandpaper.. works just takes forever. Didn't try polish after, but got it pretty clear. Don't know about grinding down edges though.
Turned up my volume to max... Hope I don't forget or the next vid will blow out my speakers. You might hear from my lawyers ;))
Wow, thank you so much! This is so helpful! You just saved me a whole lot of trouble
Haha no worries :)
So helpful and inspiring to new people. Thank you...
....Very informative tutorial, I enjoyed it immensely!
I have an observation and suggestion I'd like to run by you...
(I would never presume to tell you how to do your job, but I have a suggestion that might make a difference in symmetry for those just starting out) ...
It's been my experience that when polishing, people have a tendency to 'lean' the stone further in one direction than another simply because they are either left, or right handed.
EG; While making a circular, (or back-and-forth) motion, a right handed person has a tendency to lean an object further to the right than the left, simply because they are right handed.
(and conversely, a left handed person does the same, only to the left).
I've found that polishing an object using a 'Figure 8' motion can (and will), polish a surface more effectively and produce a surface with better symmetry....
(Sorry for the long comment, but I just wanted your opinion on using a 'Figure-8' polishing motion)...
Hi Kenny, thanks for the input. A figure of eight motion would also work well with this technique. Though with that in mind this method is mostly just meant for a bit of fun and in most cases to get a really good finished piece you'll need proper equipment.
Very interesting and helpfull, thank you!
Thanks, glad you like it :)
very helpful! i have a heap of fluorite that ive found and wasnt sure how to polish, this helped a lot!
No worries! Post an update when you have had a go, I would love to hear how you went :)
Good job...I never thought of doing it like that with the polish and sand paper.
Haha thanks :P
thanks for the video
cool. I've found some huge chunks of vintage glass (deep aquamarine-colored glass once used for electric wire insulators on power poles) along the railroad tracks by my house. I made a "gem" from one of the smaller pieces and it came out interesting...but to get the light reflection/sparkle I really wanted (like a round-cut diamond), it was just more work than I wanted to do (guess I could go back ,at any time, and put in more facets).
I then tried to do this with a giant quartz crystal...fail. I figured, since the tip was naturally shaped like a diamond's pavilion, I could do the rest...but only got about 10% there due to all the sandpaper and time I was going through.
Haha yeah for sure to get a round brilliant cut using this method would be quite a feat! Quartz is definitely going to be a challenge with this method as well, my best success has been with softer material but I have been able to buff up some small quartz crystals that were very weathered, though on larger stones I can definitely imagine it being a serious mission to get through!
Cool! I will add that the sandpaper grit is silicon carbide and should be good for most harder rocks. As you mention just need some different polish; cerium oxide probably.
thank you so much! having very little access to heavy machines due to epilepsy this will help me full the second half of my dream of collecting and cutting/polishing my own gems, i have a big bag of amethyst, quartz and many lovely crystals and "worthless" gems just waiting to be cut! once again thank yoou!!! i am going to go do this now! 😄
Haha no worries, quartz varieties will require more work than fluorite and it might not be possible to get as high a polish. However I have tried a couple of quartz points and they have turned out better than I expected :)
Lawson Gems - I managed to facet a few good sides onto a shattered peice i was using as a test, and it turned out really nice! so smooth 😊 , i did just take really long because it's alot harder, but after doing a few quartz i did my worst looking peice piece of amethyst and it turned out beautifully my one friend says the picture I sent him looks like a purple diamond, haha, thanks again! (if you interested it took me about 1h each side of quartz shards i did, and used about 1 A4 sheet of sandpaper per facet)
Oml this is crazy I know this is a like 5 year reply but I saw this and had to say. I am just now getting into this too and I have also been dealing with Epilepsy (mine is juvenile though and should go away in my later 20's) which has stopped my from doing certain tasks as well and my name is also David. The coincidences man.
That was very interesting. I have always been interested in learning about lapidary and didn't know stones could be polished that easily. Thanks for sharing!
have some raw black tourmaline and I was wondering if you know what tools I would need to cut it into smaller pieces so that I can set it into some bead caps that I have. I was also thinking about making a setting with a strip of bezel wire around the stones without a top, but some of the sides are really pointed and it won't be very easy to shape. I like the the raw look with that particular stone but I haven't figured out how to make them more suitable for setting.
I actually use a regular tile saw setup but with a lapidary blade instead of a tile blade. Technically you could still use a tile blade but as they are generally a lot thick and probably not diamond blades you will loose more to the blade and it may take longer to cut (just make sure to use water to keet the piece wet while cutting and use eye protection!)
Otherwise you may get away with a simple rotary tool with a diamond blade (dremel is good for this), it will take a bit longer but should be enough if you are just nipping the ends off small tourmaline crystals :)
Thank you! Lovely instructions. I actually have several fluorite pieces I have been wanting to use for jewelry but did not know how to go about the polishing. Since it it a softer stone, would you drill the piece? I have purchased pre-drilled fluorite but the larger pieces don’t seem to hold up well unless the pieces are 4-5mm beads. If you would not recommend drilling, how would you use larger pieces in jewelry? I appreciate your time and help.
Lucinda
Hi Lucinda, fluorite can be drilled, however where the problems arise is its tendency to cleave. There are multiple planes on which flourite likes to split so as you are drilling it, it may crack or break along one of these planes. That said if you are patient and can get yourself some "diamond core drill bits" in an appropriate size and drill slowly with a good water supply you should be alright to drill the pieces (the smaller the pieces the more difficulty you will probably have).
Really nice tune / chord progression
Thank you thank you very much for the information it is very useful I need to find more your videos keep up the good work
Glad to help. I hope to get back to film making soon!
wonderful!!
Thank you for posting !
Congratulations from Brasil
I am prospector and I love this video!
Obrigado por ensinar a cortar e polir pedras sem uso de maquinas
João Neto -BA Brasil
Glad you liked it :)
I can polish my first quartz!
Thank you Charles
How did the quartz turn out? I'm trying to figure out if it works with such a tough stone.
+Fezz Bibler I would like to know too!
Rei de Garimpo
i wouldn't brag about being a brazilian gem prospector if i were you .
www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-tourmaline-mines/brazilian-mines-produce-worlds-priciest-gems-under-fire-idUSKCN0Z30O5
Thanks been trying to find out he shape and polish by hand
No worries, good luck :)
thank you Lawson my granddaughter and I just did our first stone so beautiful please do more
That's great to hear, I am glad you enjoyed getting into gem cutting 😁
Amazing video please continue with them!
I will do my best :)
This is a really well done tutorial video. Thank you! This seems like something I could try with kids as well. I'm about to explore more of your videos by I have a question- I have a bunch of garnets that I dug up myself. I don't know a lot about processing stones, I'm a jeweler tho so I have a small bit of knowledge. But I'm confused and intimidated by the process to extract excess iron. Any tips? And could this process be used on garnets? Thanks!
Hi, glad you liked the video and for sure, this would be a great activity to do with kids! Unfortunately garnet will be too hard to use with this process. Otherwise are you able to give a bit more info on what you mean by extract the excess iron?
Thank you!!!
Thank you worked great. Pick up half bucket of crystals in Arkansas mine. To many to polish.
Thank for your video. You are making the world to be a better place:)
Thanks :)
Thanks again mate :-)
good job man.
Thanks for the support! Glad you enjoyed the video :)
That was great mate, thank you for the tutorial on manual appropriation, Cheers :)
Awesome! Thank you for sharing.
This is really helpfull may THE MOST HIGH bless you
THANK you!!!!
No worries :)
Lawson Gems Happy Holidays, can you please tell me if this same process can be used to polish multi green onyx? I have faucet handles made of the multi green onyx that need a really good polishing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry, for the late reply (replies to comments don't show up as easily as comments). This would be tough to use on onyx, my suggestion would be to start with the polishing compound first to see how that goes. I say this because you should be able to smooth and shape the onyx with a course sandpaper but the hard part will be getting the shine back. If you really want to get a shine it may be worth jumping on eBay and picking up some cerium oxide or some tin oxide which are used for the finial polish on most common gems. This will not get rid of the scratches but it will shine it up. Just get a couple of felt polishing wheels for a regular electric drill and use them with a slurry of the oxide (it will prob be a bit messy but should get the job done, just avoid getting it in your eyes as the drill will probably spin it everywhere if you have it on high)
This is extremely helpful! Thank you!
Glad to be of assistance :)
Thank you for this great and lovely style.
super it is very simple and useful
Thanks! Glad you liked it :)
Thank you! You are adorable!!!!!
Haha thanks =P
I 👍🏻 and saw confetti 😆
🥳Congratulations on 20k Likes! 🎉🎉
This is definitely something worth trying out. Thinking about it now(after doing some research), Using an electric hand rotary tool after a while would be numbing which equals more breaks in between. This looks so much more comfortable and satisfying starting out.
Thank you!
Glad you like the video 😁. Rotary tools are a great option for gem cutting if you don't want to use a full setup. Of you can mount the tool horizontally then you can use it like a mini cabbing machine ( like the one I use in this video th-cam.com/video/AwM1dOsWsoo/w-d-xo.html ) and they are actually superior to these machines for intricate work like carving and making concave cuts/getting into grooves in a stone 😁.
Wow! Thank you so very much! Can't wait to give this a try!
Haha glad you liked the video!
MY like 💎💎💎🖒🖒🖒🖒🖒🖒😁
thanks a lot sweetheart!
No worries :)
He sure is cute.
Thanks, did this today worked great!!! (Flourite as well)
I love it. Asymmetric and original. Beautyfull
Haha thanks :)
Awesome! I have a small collection of gemstones and wanted to replace the cheap, fake gemstone that I broke off from my girlfriend's ring with a real gemstone, and surprise with it. Any tips on cutting curved edges?
Hi, sorry for the late reply. Just to clarify, were you looking to produce a curved edge using this technique?
Yes, kind of like rounding off a surface. Thanks for getting back to me.
This is something I have been planning to make another video on when I get the time. But in theory this same technique should work for a curved surface, you simply need to make a curved motion instead of a flat motion while cutting down the stone surface. The setup I plan on using will also have a soft underlay instead of the hard cutting board as I feel this will give you a better curve in less time. Hope this helps :)
Sorry to cut in but I have a similar question. Would the sanding blocks on sponge work well for rounding? I know our local hardware stores sell them just can't recall the grit.
silverchimes81 kid s movie
Is “wet and dry” sandpaper any different from regular sandpaper? Can I use regular sandpaper or will that not take water well and ruin my stones?
I’ve used dry sandpaper before and it definitely didn’t work. My stones were fine, however the sandpaper tends to disintegrate quickly.
This is brilliant! Thank you so much! Just subscribed!
Whoohoo a new sub! Glad you enjoyed the video and the channel :)
You saved my crystal..
Thanks a ton for this video!! 🤗
No worries, glad the video was useful for you 😁
I always found stones like the first one you showed. but I was younger and thought it was a badly scratched up piece of glass. now I want them back.
I'm so stupid
Haha there is nothing wrong with hoarding gemstones :P
can I do this with stones that aren't "gems" per say? like opaque stones that are usually made into cabochons? (cuz that would seem super unique and interesting to me).
You can do this with a lot of different stone or gem types, the main limiting factor is the hardness of the stone and in the case of rocks you will have to deal with different hardness's of the minerals within the rock. For example with granite the hardness will range in most cases from 6 for the feldspars (this would probably be work with this method) up to around 7.5 for things like garnets and amphiboles (this will be difficult if not impossible with this technique). That said people have commented below that they have had success with gems in the 7-7.5 range and if you are just using general "rock" material you should have plenty of material to practice and experiment on :)
Really interesting video. I amazed by how simple the process it.
Thanks, this was a fun video to make 😁
Nice watch 😉. Speaking of which this is exactly the technique I use for restoring badly scratched watch crystals
Thats fine for soft stones like opal, but what about Sapphire and Ruby. I wore out diamond jewelers files to try to cut a cabochon out of 5 ct Ruby. I have a 14 and a 25 ct Ruby. This method will never work on stones that are harder than diamond. I love the way you used glass polish to polish the gem, that will work on this huge 40 ct opal I have. Got any suggestions on how to cut rubies and sapphire ?
Hi Casey, ruby and sapphire ar e rather hard stones, really only second to diamond. What this means is that you need something very hard to polish them, ideally diamond. You can purchase vials of diamond powder which can be mixed with oil or alcohol etc the used to polish corundum nicely. However if you have corundum (ruby/sapphire) to polish it may be better to either see if you can find a local lapidary club or invest in some more serious gear. The glass polish could work on opal but it may take some time, as its hardness it getting up there with the limit of the opal, but if it just needs a bit of a buff it should do the trick :)
Thanks Charles. I think a lapidary club is the best way to get the ruby and sapphires cut and polished. The ruby’s I have are high grade and flawless, I would hate to ruin them. Thanks again for the great advice Charles.
Fact check... You don't have anything "harder than diamond" as diamond has a Mohs scale hardness of 10, the highest ranking. Your rubies & sapphires (corundum) are only a 9. Your emerald (beryl) is only 7.5 - 8. And that opal is a mere 5.5-6.5 in hardness. If you'd like to try messing around with a harder stone, try diamond sandpaper, found at common hardware stores like Lowe's. However, I doubt that you will do it justice. If you don't know these fundamentals of gemology, how can you declare your stones to be "high grade and flawless"? You do know that an emerald is rarely free of inclusions and therefore finding a "flawless" emerald is going to make that stone worth a small fortune, depending (of course) on the color, clarity, size as well? If you truly have excellent stones of this caliber, please take them to an expert lapidary, not just some local club whose members have varying degrees of competency in faceting.
AlbredaWelde you are right and have knowledge of gems
Caseys Karma., ok, learn your gems hardness level before making comment, that way u don’t stick ur foot in ur mouth lol
I didn't know you could cut gems with common sand paper. would you need a professional lapidary wheel to cut hard stones?
Yep that is definitely the case, the hardest you could go would be a material with a mohs hardness of 6, this is largely because the finial polishing compound is designed to polish glass. That said it would still take a very long time to get a good polishon something that hard. This technique is best suited to softer gems, have a look in the video's description for a list of possible options listed in order of hardness.
Lawson Gems thanks
swagermuffinz ! ....he wasn't cutting them....
Hi Optic, the term for shaping gemstones is actually cutting. Cutting can involve either faceting or making cabochons, cutting is a bit of a blanket term for the fashioning of gems but more specifically it is the shaping of a stone which is then followed by polishing. Hence the term "cutting and polishing a gem" :)
Lawson Gems hey! I have a question regarding this process. Do you, by any chance, know how did people do this before machines? Because i don't think they had sandpaper back in the day hahaha. Just out of shear curiosity. Btw thanks for the vid! It was really cool!!!
This is such a great video thank you!
You're so welcome!
Thank you so much for this video. I would also like to know if it's possible to cut a piece of rose quartz by hand without electric machinery?
Can you do a video on what product to use to polish crystals like amethyst or rose quartz that have lost their polish?
I'll see what I can do :)
Would this technique work on quartz crystals?
It will work to an extent, quartz is hardness 7 where as the stone in the video is fluorite which is hardness 4. It will shape fairly easily but getting the final high polish will be more challenging. However viewers have commented below that it has worked on stones like aquamarine which is hardness of 7.5-8.0 so it should work, just with a little more elbow Grease :)
Lawson Gems
2 questions, if you dont mind.
1) where can fluorite be found or how do you get it?
2) what grit numbers would you recommend for filing and shaping quartz?
Excellent filming and sharing :-) 5 thumbs up Video !
Haha thanks! I thought this would be a good project for people looking to dabble in lapidary or even as a fun project to do with kids =)
So nice! Helpful video