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 Post subject: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:51 pm 
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In my search for all the shades of color in tourmaline, I have been fortunate to come across pieces of rough that are very clean, large and of uniform color. Many times they are pastels that beg to be cut into deep gemstones that retain all the depth of color possible. To take this trip with pink is not too unusual, but the stone I would like to talk about is most unusual. She is a pastel beige that I call ecru because I do quite a bit if work with wool. Preforming smoothly produced a deep round shape that was large enough (the gemstone is a little over 10 carats) to need more facets on the pavilion than usual in a round brilliant. My favorite for deep pavilions is called split horizontal mains. This cut produces such a deep cut that it is really not practical for gemstone that you might set in conventional jewelery, but for display and color enhancement it rates in there with emerald cuts for me. In fact they are basically just round emerald cuts with breaks around the girdle to level it. I only use a two step pavilion separated by at least 10 degrees and adjust the breaks to meet at the top of the step closest to the girdle. Because of her size I decided to give Queen Ecru ( I do name a limited number of my jewels, as an old mans fantasy) 12 mains with assorted breaks. After she polished beautifully, I,in my passion, forgot that I had 12 mains on her pavilion and preceded to cut an 8 main crown (I do not facet round girdles) too far to complete the gem as a common 12 main crown with a split 12 main pavilion. What to do now? I am not a creative cutter, because my heart belongs to color not technical brilliance in cutting. Since I still had plenty of thickness for the crown, I decided to make two steps of about the same depth with a thin guard step around the table on each of her 8 sides. To make the round girdle more even, I put a single step in between the 8 sides and made its angle so that the facets came to fall within the middle of the row of the second step facets. After polishing, she greatly appealed to me. Not only did she have great purity and a shade that I had not seen in such a large tourmaline before, she had presence. Face up she really does not have any darken areas and a depth that seems to pull you in. Now I am an old man easily swayed by a pretty shade, but other more responsible people have commented about her presence. I have tried my mixture of mismatched crown and pavilion on other tourmaline and gotten good results so after walking her in the sunlight one more time, i decided to write a little of her story and glory.

Bruce


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 Post subject: Re: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:58 pm 
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Bruce you're a bloomin tease. All that and no pic! :shock:

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 Post subject: Re: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:41 pm 
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Thanks for reading, now I can send an email to Barbra and maybe she can put up the picture from the disc I sent her. Barbra, if you're reading this it is number 692 on the hit parade. Thanks for helping.

My fans do more than just move air.

Bruce


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 Post subject: Re: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:44 pm 
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:lol:

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 Post subject: Re: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 10:03 pm 
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:D Image 692 looks like:
Image
Is this what you had in mind, Bruce?


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 Post subject: Re: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 8:50 am 
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Yes that is the one. I really appreciate the help in posting the picture, which I should do on my own, but somehow never do.

The picture is quite a good prepresentation of the gem on my screen, but I think that you still need a discription of the gem to get the best feeling for something you can't personally interact with. I find this to be particularly true of gemstones that are exceptional bright or significantly included. Imperfections in the gemstone are magnified by the electronic cameras and lighting conditions effect brightness excessively. But in this case, I can reasure you that her pure bright heart is flashing at me right now under a modest incandescent light that seems dwarfed by a gray winter day. She is certainly a cut above the rest (most) in my book.

Bruce


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 Post subject: Re: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 8:36 pm 
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Yup, cain't see no blemishes in that baby. Well done Bruce. :P

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 Post subject: Re: A nice combination of cuts for a pastel tourmaline
PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 1:22 am 
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Very very nice Bruce!
=D>

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