Nice one, Peter.

Love you`re videos

For every problem there is always a solution; you solved it. Don’t care what anyone else says. Nice one Peter, thanks for sharing. Rog. 😀🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Thank you SOOO much for the tip on polishing SinC. My theory is that going from 600 to prepolish (or even straight to polish) that the top of the "ridges" created from the courser grit, are breaking off and creating self-contaminating chunks on the lap. Sometimes those chunks are fairly large, so I get BIG 100 - 300 grit-sized scratches, and many times they're smallish and I get 600 grit-sized. I'm going to eventually test this theory by including a 1200 or 1500 grit step between the 600 and prepolish. I wonder if this is a problem for other mineral types as well.

Hi, how are you, I’ve been binge watching your videos and now I’m hooked 👀😂, I’ve even decided to buy a cutting table 🤣😅. Do u have a video about the actual machine, turn table ?

You used the letter f more times than my high school english teacher on this one! muhahahahah

The pits you're seeing on the surface are almost certainly "orange peel." If these were as a result of bubbles you would not be able to polish them out. Every gem cutter learns their own "tricks" to working out the kinks. Allow me to share mine. I've found that a very light charge of 8000 grit diamond on a copper lap seems to produce the best prepolish I could ask for and does so very quickly even for corundum. It's important to also note that the uniformity of particle size matters here. You need high quality finely sorted diamond powder. Not all powder is created equally! The trick is to actually use very little oil (and very little diamond) by sweeping the surface of the lap with a bit of paper towel to mostly dry the surface of oil before you apply the powder. Then rub the diamond in with your fingertip and spread evenly. The diamond will then stick more firmly to a light coating of oil rather than sliding around on the surface in a thick slurry. If the particles slide around, they will clump up. This can and does create disturbing "cat hair" scratches on the surface of your facet. It's amazing how little diamond you actually need on your lap. This was my lapidary epiphany moment if you will. I've also found a 1200 grit lap sets the stone up quite well to transition into a prepolish. Stay away from any grit sizes finer than 1200 and more coarse than 4000. A 50k or 60k charge on a BA5T lap for final is also amazingly fast, even for large stones with large facets. I feel like the main time suck with any large stone is due to the sheer surface area of each facet especially the table. Keep finding those lap/medium combos that increase your speed, nobody likes to spend several minutes polishing a single facet, and your wrist will thank you later.

Hi, good morning and Happy New Year. I see that you have a facetting machine, you think it's better than the new ones that have much more. I think that the one you have is easier to use

Would love if you showed closeups, nice and slow, all around, of your finished gems. To see them many feet away in a display box doesn’t do it. Thanks, (a GG).

If working with a stone that isn't deep enough to avoid having a window, is that flaw in the finished stone less of a problem/less noticeable in colored stones than in a colorless stone? I didn't mind the look of the window with the rind in the prior video, but wonder if I would just have a dark or dead spot in a colorless crystal.

Synthetics: these are gems that have been grown in a laboratory, although many people refer to them as “fake” this is not exactly correct due to the fact they are the same material.