Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:11 am Posts: 102 Location: Cape Town
My client casts around 15000 items of jewellery per month and has been setting 1mm round synthetic sapphires. His supplier has been slipping CZ's in the parcels which has caused quiet a stir by his clients. He is using a Presidium thermal conductivity tester and that indicates synthetic spinel at times. These stones are so small that testing is difficult and doing some testing myself have found it pretty easy to separate CZ from synthetic sapphire or spinel if the instrument is used correctly and the jewellery held in tweezers to avoid body heat. He wants to be able to distinguish between synthetic spinel and sapphire to be absolutely sure. I have asked him to bring in a parcel of his synthetic sapphires both loose and set so that we can do some experimenting. The question I asked was to firstly find out if 1mm round synthetic spinel are available, if not it would solve the problem and if they do then it would be beneficial to do a comparison. Fluorescent testing wasn't conclusive as the fluorescence was inconsistent.
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:04 am Posts: 257 Location: Idaho
With that kind of volume, you should be able to find someone in China, India, Thailand, or Sri Lanka who will cut colorless spinel or corundum to your specs... Corundum would be preferable - less likely to be damaged by tools in setting.
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We do not have on stock syn. Spinel white but Dalloz Septmoncel France http://dalloz-dil.fr/ is having synthetic Spinel white 1,00mm in the program. I do not know if they are on stock available but in the pricelist they are noted.
The syn. Spinel rough is produced by Rubis RSA - a daughter company of the Dalloz Group. New name: Dalloz Stones & Rough
Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 11:00 am Posts: 1133 Location: Monterey, CA
gemlab wrote:
These stones are so small that testing is difficult and doing some testing myself have found it pretty easy to separate CZ from synthetic sapphire or spinel if the instrument is used correctly and the jewellery held in tweezers to avoid body heat. He wants to be able to distinguish between synthetic spinel and sapphire to be absolutely sure.
Use your polarsicope or immerse it in methylene iodide.
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