Design by Jeff Graham - video.

Some slight veil in one corner though not really visible to the naked eye.

The Brilliant Pear is designed to cut like a standard round brilliant and look like a pear. The light return is excellent, much better than any traditional pear I've ever seen. Unlike many pear designs, this one employs a centred culet. The pavilion is basically a split mains variation of the SRB with 3 elongated sets of facets, and the crown is also a modification of the SRB pattern. This produces a pleasingly shaped stone with the added attraction that this design can be mounted in standard 4-prong findings and settings designed for round stones. Natural Blue Topaz (irradiated).

Lucifer - design by Jack Rowland, cut in lab-grown Ruby

A very bright, sparkly cut - hence Lucifer - the lightbringer

Pentagram Flower by Ian Robinson

This design was based heavily on 'Hamani' by Marco Voltolini

rather bright lab-grown lilac sapphire.

Design by Fred Van Sant, 67 facets

Two tiers of facets on the crown are frosted to create a Star of David effect.

Cut in white sapphire - a very bright sparkly stone. The final high polish is achieved with 0.25 micron diamond polish on a ceramic lap for extra flatness and crisper facet edges. This followed a deep pre-polish at 3 micron on a Batt lap taking over 11 hours to cut - aligning the facets is a bugger! - video.

'Yup, so really I just wanted a crown that looked like the line angle structure of hexanitrobenzene'.

A rather nice design from Arya Akhavan with the crown formed from 7 hexagons. Cut in Rose de France - natural light coloured amethyst.

Video.

Aperture Science - Design by Arya Akhavan - 49 facets

A brilliant cut pavilion for sparkle and dispersion with a large table. This was inspired by a camera aperture? Certainly gives a very bright and rather appealing design especially in darker stones such as this. Lab-grown Yttrium Aluminium Garnet

Natural Brazilian Amethyst - large custom Flower Cut

Rather a large stone at 14.7mm diameter. The surface is very well polished, marks you can see are due to spiral inclusions and a veil within the stone. Personally I find these add character. If one wants a perfect stone then - man-made is the way to go.

Video

Pyroclastic Flow by Arya Akhavan

Natural deep red garnet in Arya's Pyroclastic Flow cut.

This design really work with the deep red of garnet. Tricky to photograph, in direct light one see sudden brilliant blood red flashes as the stone is moved. Up close it resembles dully glowing lava (at least to my eyes)

Video

'Chrysanthemum', design by Quincy D Howell, 81 facets

This is a matched pair of fairly large (10mm) precision cut sapphires each of 5.3ct. Would look nice in large drop earrings. Being essentially round (strictly 16 sided) they should be easy to set. They are very bright and sparkly, in part due to the quality of polish on the pavilion - the bottom of the stone.

Video

'Crest of Hylia', design by Arya Akhavan, 46 facets

This is becoming one of my more popular cuts, a very bright sparkly design.

Video

Radiant Ice - based on radiant Emerald by Grossbard & Steele. Cut in Leuco (pure-clear) lab sapphire.

Tricky to photograph - video.

Cut in rather rare green lab sapphire. A very bright cut - hence 'Lightbringer'.

Lucifer - video

Design by Ian Robinson, 41 facets.

Brilliant cut square with frosted facets showing an Iron Cross - video

Another one in my Iron Cross design. This in natural black spinel.

The Iron Cross has been a German military award from 1877 to the present and its design may be traced back to the cross pattée of the 11^th century Teutonic Knights of Jerusalem and earlier.

Design by Jeff Graham - video

Cut in lab-grown Candy-Red Sapphire

Rexy Flexy by Robert Dodd

An interesting ‘modern’ hexagon. Restrained in that it does not have an excess of facets resulting in a design that shows off the geometry of the cut. Interestingly there are two varients, left and right handed which works nicely with matched stones.

These two stones are cut in Left and Right versions. One is slightly lighter than the other despite being cut from the same piece of rough. I wouldn't like to describe them as matched rather as a pair.

Tears of Elune, design by Arya Akhavan. Cut in vivid blue lab spinel - video.

Nice: shard like narrow pear shape.

Somewhat time consuming and fiddly to cut taking me about twice as long as similar pear designs.

adapted from Thank You Bern'd by Marco Voltolini

A very unusual minimalist geometric design. A single bubble is carved into the back giving rise to interesting reflections.By virtue of its shape this would take some rather creative setting!

The carving and shape were surprisingly time-consuming to cut & polish. I cut a similar stone for a museum display though given the time involved I am unlikely to cut another in the foreseeable.

Video

'Star of David #3', adapted from a design by Fred van Sant, 61 facets

Two tiers of facets on the crown are frosted to create a Star of David. Cut in light blue topaz to match the Israeli flag.

A popular cut but rather time-consuming - Video.

Design by Ian Robinson.

Design N^o4 - Iconoclast - video

Brilliant cut pavilion. Frosted cone crown with 4 large facets surrounding a square table.

Design by Ian Robinson.

Design and setting by Ian Robinson

My own trefoil design in a handmade sterling silver setting. Three large crown facets display a brilliant cut pavilion in a frosted surround.

Design by Jeff Graham - video

Ruination: design by Arya Akhavan.

Almost impossible to photograph accurately! The image appears to show scratching - there is none. I presume this is an artefact of the myriad of internal reflections. The stone looks white, almost milky in diffuse light but explodes into rainbows in direct light.

Lithium Niobate is an unusual material - this with an curious background. (LiNbO₃) is an exotic ceramic used in the photonics industry. Entirely man-made it does not occur in nature.

Optically its refractive index is similar to that of diamond whilst its dispersion is over three times diamond's - hence the rainbow

So very pretty and unusual.. what's the catch? Well it is soft with a moh hardness of about 5 which makes it difficult to polish and needs care in setting. I tried about 6 different lap/polish combinations before getting it right (0.25 micron diamond on tin alloy f.y.i.). It can be used in jewellery however one would not recommend it for a ring rather a setting which would offer some protection.

The provenance is interesting as I very strongly suspect this came from the stockrooms of a soviet-era defence research establishment.

Ruination: design by Arya Akhavan.

Ruination: design by Arya Akhavan, cut in lab-grown spinel

Bright Square Maltese Cross: design by Charles Colvill, 48 facets.

Emergent Phenomenon - design by Arya Akhavan

This is one of the brightest designs I have ever seen. Arya is an accomplished designer and the myriad internal reflections make this one of my favourite cuts.

'Chrysanthemum', design by Quincy D Howell, 81 facets

This is becoming one of my more popular cuts, a very bright sparkly design.

Design by Arya Akhavan, 49 facets, A brilliant cut pavilion for sparkle and dispersion with a large table. This was inspired by a camera aperture? Certainly gives a very bright and rather appealing design especially in darker stones such as this.

Lucifer - design by Jack Rowland, cut in Indian black spinel

I do like spinel feeling that the surface lustre is superior to sapphire. Black spinel has to be polished with great care as the smallest scratch is apparent.

Was there any point cutting the pavilion (bottom) No - apart from a sense of completeness. In the video under bright light and high magnification it become apparent that the stone is actually a very deep red - to the naked eye appearing jet black. There is a very faint mark on the top facet - not an error but an internal fault in the stone. This is not visible to the naked eye, only under high magnification.

Pink Sapphire - 'Triangle Custom Design '

This is a custom cut triangle. I was going for a dramatic simple design which could look good in a pendant - Video.

'Desoppo Bars' - design by Marco Voltolini

An interesting variant on the ‘opposed bars’ concept. Usually opposed bars designs have the bars inverted (orthogonal) with respect this design.

'Star of David #2', adapted from a design by Fred van Sant, 61 facets

Two tiers of facets on the crown are frosted to create a Star of David. Finished in blue sapphire to match the Israeli flag.

At high magnification a slight asymmetry in the shape of the table is apparent though I cannot discern this with the naked eye - video.

Lithium Tantalate is a labgrown ceramic occasionally used in specialised semiconductor sensors. Very rare this piece is a legacy of the soviet defence industry. With a high refractive index (2.2) similar to that of diamond and crazy high dispersion - three times diamond's this is a very attractive material. With such high dispersion one sees rainbows in direct light. Super - If you can get any!

To the best of my knowledge this was the only Tantalate gemstone then for sale worldwide. I have 2 more pieces left to cut.

The stone is cut with a brilliant pavilion (bottom) and a step cut crown - video.

'Golden Poppy', design by Marco Voltolini, 66 facets

This was a tricky stone to photograph. in part due to the subtle colouration though mostly due to my ineptitude at studio photography. Rose de France is a pale amethyst. The cut is unusual possessing 5 fold symmetry i.e. the stone is 5 sided.

'Gram Emerald', adapted from a design by Jeff Graham

Emerald Cuts are surprisingly tricky, parallel lines show the slightest asymmetry.

'Chrysanthemum', adapted from a design by Quincy D Howell, 81 facets

Sometimes things just go so well. This cutting was entirely problem free and worked out rather well I feel. The light pink gives a subdued subtle effect in what is a large stone.

'Smithsonian Bar', design by Jeff Graham - video.