So I rejoined the local gem club after a long break and recently started using the machine I've been pouring all that aluminium and making parts for the last fifteen years for. The gem is a 10mm diameter topaz I dug up while camping at O'Brien's creek near Mount Surprise which is a prehistoric ocean bed gemstone deposit. The gem didn't appear blue while I was cutting it and appears white under artificial lighting and blue in daylight. Standard Brilliant cut used above: New finished faceting machine. Fresh castings:
That gem looks amazing. It's awesome being able to make something that can yield results like that! BTW, I'm having no trouble seeing all 5 pictures.
Not logged in on Android, I am missing pictures. Logged in I see all both Firefox and Android. Not logged in Firefox I see thumbnails of all pictures. What a project!
Thanks for the kind words, I'm a minor bit player in the making of these machines which have been made and evolved since the 1960's Sorry about the images, they were already uploaded in other posts, so I just inserted image links which worked in Firefox browser. I've made separate copies and uploaded them to make sure it works.
The story of these machines goes back to the 1960's and I've had some small involvement since the 1990's. This model is a budget unit that sells well due to it's value/engineering point: units have even been reverse engineered in Taiwan but it couldn't be copied for enough profit margin at the time. We heard about this from two different sources including the person who was going to copy it.
