Cutting exercise – blue tourmaline crystal.
Indicolite is a rare, steely-blue coloured form of tourmaline highly prized as a gemstone. Above are two views of a piece of rough I have at hand weighing around 18ct. You can see in these pictures a bit of the blue-green dichroism typical of tourmaline exhibited by viewing the crystal in different directions.
The tourmaline piece is included, however I feel like using this as a feature – any inclusions present will hopefully provide extra interest to the stone when cut.
This interest is sometimes called the garden, a term often used when describing the rich suite of inclusions typically present in emeralds. Just in this case my garden has blue grass. If you want a stone as clear as glass, go and get a synthetic one I say, they’re real cheap, lol. I am sure the jewellery store at the local shopping mall will be able to help.
I have ground a small flat plane on one crystal edge to provide a base for securely dopping (affixing) the stone to a small brass holder (dop) using super glue (cyanoacrylate).
The cut is designed to give a nice colour flash when rocked along the long-axis. I like flashes in faceted stones – it’s the light-return happening, its real purty. This cut has 90.7% light return as specified by the designer … nice. What this means in simpler terms is that of all the photons (light rays) incident on the facets of the top crown, around 90% of them are bounced back into your waiting eyes. This is a good thing. Who wants a dull stone? The astute may notice that I have oriented the stone at 90 degrees to the cutting diagram above, so my colour flash should happen when the completed stone is rocked along the short axis.
Yes, the stone is flawed. I think it is still worthwhile, attractive and of value. After all, we are all deeply-flawed human beings I say. It’s up to us to make the most of any strengths to offset any perceived weaknesses.