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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 3:58 pm 
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Kingsolomon wrote:
When people say on here " it won't be a competition stone" and " nobody complains about my meets" what exactly are we talking about getting away with? As in what is commercially acceptable ?
Barney


Barney, There is a wide range of what is considered "commercially" acceptable. I set lots of stones both commercial and precision cut and they vary widely in their cut quality. The natural gems have the widest variability, since they are cut in so many different places. The one overriding factor that causes people to buy is how the stone looks, face up and at arms length. Since there is virtually no visible difference between a competition quality cut and a well done commercial cut, under normal circumstances, I would suggest not getting too hung up on making things "perfect" until you've gotten some miles under your belt and have been selling stuff for a while. It will then become abundantly clear what makes for an acceptable and sellable cut quality. My experience dictates the following cut requirements, in order of importance, for an easily sellable, stone in the $500 and under price range:
1. Polish...this has to be excellent, with no eye visible cat scratches or scuffing, particularly on the crown.
2. Symmetry...the culet has to be centered and the crown facets matching in the same tiers with an even overall face up profile.
3. Even, correctly sized girdles....most setters hate setting thick girdles as they weaken the stone seats and are more time consuming. Make
these medium in thickness and polish a microfacet on the upper break for the greatest setting ease.
4. Meet points....these should be good, within .002" or so on the crown and maybe .005" on the pavilion. This is not as big a deal for most
jewelers and only matters to those end clients who are going to pull out a loupe when looking at a stone.

In addition, you should ask any client about their requirements BEFORE you cut or sell anything to them. If they are the "pull out a loupe and get critical", kind of person, you should increase the cost to them dramatically, since you'll be taking MUCH more time to make them happy.

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 9:07 am 
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Precision , Michael , Tom , xenos...

Really appreciate your input .
I was hoping to " jazz up " the smokey as i thought it might be more appealing than a standard round or such . I was reading through an online blog or such and suggested to do as such for stones as such.
See the point .. I will definitely look into some of this hydro and such( any suggestions where I could acquire that or rough in general?) .
I'll ask another question , but I think I already know the response. When I went to update my machine I was thinking about getting a concave / fantasy unit. I didn't .. But now as I cut more gems I start to think I should of. But my question is , are these designs from said machine even harder to sell?
It seems as though the facetor has the eye for different looking stones , not the customer.
Barney


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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:56 am 
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Barney, I have found that the concave cuts are harder to sell, because there is a smaller number of people who desire them. You will also spend more time making these cuts. Concave facets do take longer to polish. I figure an additional hour minimum to do a concave stone.

On the flip side, I really like them especially on peridot and stones in the mid tone range.

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 1:27 pm 
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Back when I first started to cut, I left about 6 stones at a small private owned jeweler. He put them in his display and told me if they sell, he will pay me for them. Several weeks or months went by, then one day he called and said he had a check for me that two of the stones had sold.

Forward fast about 10 years later. One day my wife said she had something for me. The pulled out a little box, and there were the first two stones I sold! Turns out she bought them to encourage me back 10 years ago.

Sometimes that's all you need is to make that first sale. I had 3 jewelers in town that I then would leave stones with on memo, and found that this worked pretty good. The key is you need to find a real jeweler who is a gold smith. You want the guy who answers the door with a magnifier on his head and a smock. These guys will like your more unique cutting to create one of a kind pieces. Through these three shops, I would normally sell 6 to 10 stones a month. Not enough to get rich on, but enough to buy more rough.

You need to have quality goods however. A 2 ct light brownish yellow citrine is not going to work. Cheap rough produces stones that are not really easy to sell, or recover what you paid for the rough.

Find your niche in your area, and every area is different. One time on a trip to California, we spent a few days in Carmel. I took a walk on day as my wife was getting ready, stopped by a few jewelers, showed them a tray of stones I brought and ended up selling over $3000 in stones before noon. One guy, looked at the stones, told me the cutting was very nice, but his typical price point starts at $40,000 for custom work. Obviously I had nothing in that price range. But maybe If I lived out their, I would target that type of market.

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 9:41 pm 
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that's a good couple of stories. thank-you for sharing. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 3:48 am 
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Thanks again precision
What I've done now is buy about 20 pieces of rough tourmaline and rhodilite , will do my best to resist fancy cuts .
The rough ranges from 2-30 carats . So will probably start looking at jeweller or put them up on a website soon .
Does this sound better ? :)

Thanks again
Barney


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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:52 am 
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I've just read an article on ultratec website ... John bailey tells me its easy to make $20 an hour cutting marbles? http://www.ultratec-facet.com/PDFs/CAN% ... CETING.pdf

Can anyone explain this?
He also states its easy to make $100 an hour faceting decent rough . Apart from deciding on color ... There is not much more info on this " easy money " . Let alone this marble trade I'm unaware of! ? Jeez , think I'm either in the cold or can't smell bull*#%# on the end of my nose.
I hope someone can make me understand how this would work?

Barney


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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:42 am 
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I just had a look at Johns paper.

Hard to understand how you could make $20 per hour cutting marbles. Maybe he knows of this cut marble market that I don't know of. But lets assume it take 2 hours to cut the marble, and the initial cost of the marble is just $0.10. You would spend some time obtaining these marbles, also some time would be spent in the marketing and selling of them, some time doing accounting, shipping etc. So maybe in total 3 hours per marble, but I would think it would all add up to more? Do cut marbles sell for $60?

I know that John teaches cutting, so maybe he is looking for students?

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 12:00 pm 
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I know that John teaches cutting, so maybe he is looking for students?


I doubt it. His faceting academies are always sold out and full. He's really good at it, and has good rough connections. So he probably has followers or fans for customers. If he cut a marble, people would buy it.
His marble cutting would probably be measured in minutes, not hours.

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 1:31 pm 
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Kingsolomon wrote:
He also states its easy to make $100 an hour faceting decent rough . Apart from deciding on color ... There is not much more info on this " easy money " .


It's fairly easy to make $100 per hour faceting decent rough. What he's not mentioning are the countless hours spent finding the market to sell this into. I think that for every hour spent cutting you'll, initially at least, spend 4 hours selling the goods. The things needed to sell any work usually cost much more time than doing the work itself. Once you've established a reputation and have a clientele it gets easier...maybe.

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:51 pm 
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Dito what Michael said.
Sometimes you cut a stone and think "Wow I made a pretty good hourly rate cutting", but once you factor in everything else.... 27 hours on a flight to Africa, the cost of the flight, website development, accounting, running to the post office, photography, Tucson.... the countless hours on GO website, camera's, macro lenses, domain names, company car..... that $100 per hour becomes much less.
What you have to do then is, say to yourself that you really enjoy all this stuff and it's not really work.

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:58 pm 
Barney showed me his tourmaline and garnet and I showed him what to cut. He will now cut standard easy sellable cuts from this rough. I still say the best way to get more per hour is to use your best cutting practices to shorten cutting times as well as combined wheels to shorten other things like lap changes and time lost re-finding facets multiple times. Other factors come into it like knowing what rough to buy and what cuts to cut. Don't forget its a privillage to be able to choose individually your rough so don't complain about the surcharge as you will recoup that in better cut and weight return.In Aussie its different than the USA so we need to define our market a different way and our cutting fee structure is much different and varies greatly from location to location.
Ive just finished the last of my tooling up for my fast cutting systems and now are ready to start production here. Barney has one. Time to use it.

http:/gemcutters.blogspot.com.au/


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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:07 pm 
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What you have to do then is, say to yourself that you really enjoy all this stuff and it's not really work.


"A person who loves their work never works a day in their life."

"Work is Love made visible."

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 10:30 am 
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ultraset wrote:
Barney showed me his tourmaline and garnet and I showed him what to cut. He will now cut standard easy sellable cuts from this rough. I still say the best way to get more per hour is to use your best cutting practices to shorten cutting times as well as combined wheels to shorten other things like lap changes and time lost re-finding facets multiple times. Other factors come into it like knowing what rough to buy and what cuts to cut. Don't forget its a privillage to be able to choose individually your rough so don't complain about the surcharge as you will recoup that in better cut and weight return.In Aussie its different than the USA so we need to define our market a different way and our cutting fee structure is much different and varies greatly from location to location.
Ive just finished the last of my tooling up for my fast cutting systems and now are ready to start production here. Barney has one. Time to use it.

http:/gemcutters.blogspot.com.au/


I think really the best way to make more per hour, is to cut more expensive material. There is a lot more room to make money on a $3000 stone than a $30 stone.

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 Post subject: Re: Economics of Faceting
PostPosted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 2:46 am 
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So ... I took everyone's advise , did my best to do commercial cut , where appropriate .
And I sold my first stone yesterday ! So happy!
Here is what I've been doing... 1-2 carat tourmaline . Not best photo .[url][URL=http://s1003.photobucket.com/user/kingsolomonsound/media/image_5.jpg.html]Image[/url][/url]
Also a couple of rhodilite in there too :)it's a shot from my phone so dosnt show darker stones beauty.

But what I'm really saying is i appreciate everyone's advise and thank you !:)


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