37. Gemstone Fashioning Part One: An Overview for Gemmology Study

In this episode, Lucinda and Simon explore the fascinating world of gemstone cutting and fashioning, covering essential terminology, techniques, and historical insights crucial for gemologists and enthusiasts alike.

 key  topics
Gemstone cutting terminology
Differences between lapidary and diamond manufacturing
Factors influencing gemstone cut decisions
Historical gem cutting techniques and innovations
Practical tips for evaluating rough stones

Gem Cutting Vocabulary
Diamond Manufacturing Process
Gemstone Cut Optimization

Review gemstone terminology regularly
Practice evaluating rough stones before cutting
Explore historical gem cutting techniques


Titles
Mastering Gemstone Cutting: Techniques, History, and Industry Insights
The Art and Science of Gem Cutting: A Comprehensive Guide


 sound bites
"The old mine cut has a rich history."
"Inlays and carvings add artistic value."
"A break in gem cutting is coming soon."


Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Gemmology and Cutting Gemstones
03:01 The Importance of Understanding Gemstone Cuts
05:43 Insights from Gem Cutting Experts
08:26 The Process of Fashioning Gemstones
11:09 Types of Gemstone Fashioning
13:58 Evaluating Rough Gemstones
16:37 Key Factors in Gemstone Cutting
19:13 Understanding Diamond Manufacture
21:58 Historical Perspectives on Gem Cutting
24:42 Modern Trends in Gem Cutting
27:24 Conclusion and Future of Gem Cutting
29:12 Understanding Diamond Cuts and Their History
32:29 The Anatomy of a Diamond: Key Features
34:51 Exploring Brilliant Cut Stones
36:42 Step Cuts vs. Brilliant Cuts: A Comparison
38:04 The Evolution of Rose Cuts and Mixed Cuts
40:32 Fantasy Cuts: The Art of Gemstone Cutting
41:35 Cabochons: The Gateway to Gem Cutting
44:25 Beads, Cameos, and Intaglios: Decorative Techniques
46:10 Carvings, Inlays, and Mosaics: Artistic Expressions

The V&A Museum Gem Collection - https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/gems
UK Facet Cutters Guild - https://ukfcg.org/


 guest links
Instagram - https://instagram.com/facetnationgemmology
Email - mailto:facetnation@facetnation.co.uk

gemmology, gemstone cutting, gem fashioning, gemmology exam, gem cutter, gemstone shapes, diamond manufacturing, gemmology history, gemstone grading, jewellery industry

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hello everyone and welcome to Facet Nation, a gemology podcast. I'm Lucinda.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And I am Simon.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

And today is a very exciting day. It is Bank Holiday Monday. It is blazing sunshine outside, and we are going to be beaming into your iPhones and living rooms the same day, which is very exciting. So happy Bank Holiday Monday, everybody. Simon, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Today we are going to continue our theme of obsession and talk about fashioning and cutting gemstones.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

You are really we're into it now. It's it's our it's our sort of obsession at the at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah. I mean, like, so we've had three guests now talking about this, but what we haven't actually done is covered the stuff that's kind of in the Gemma course notes and the things you actually need to know for your diploma. So we're going to go over some of that stuff today. I will input with my pathetic advice that I have for anybody that feels like they want to start cutting stones, seeing as I've only just begun. But yeah, some things I have found useful and difficult, lots of things I've found difficult. So I'll go over those so you can try and avoid them.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Indeed. And I will say, you know, the Gemma course notes, as somebody who was interested in gemology but not necessarily finished jewelry when I started, this is actually a really helpful chapter to get right because when you're talking within the industry, some of the terms that we're going to say here, some of the different cuts are really, really important to understand. And also it's important to understand how colored stones and diamonds go from rough to finished stones so that you can understand why you see some things more than other things, what a well-cut stone looks like. So all of this stuff is actually really, really important, even if it's not as purely gemological, perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, and this stuff does actually come up on the exam too. So you do kind of this terms you need to know and things. I mean, some of it, if you've been working in the jewelry industry for a while, might seem a bit sort of simple and basic, but if you haven't, and like you said, you're coming at it from a gemology point of view, rather than a working in working in jewelry and you've seen lots of faceted or cut stones, and then you might not necessarily know some of this stuff. And like I said, you do need to know it for the exam. And just in general, for your for your career in the jewelry and gem industry.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Even if you're just a hobbyist, like if you just like buying gemstones, knowing this stuff actually makes it much easier to shop for stones because you know what you're shopping for. And it also makes you really appreciate the true artistry of what the some of the people we've been interviewing are doing. So people like Aria, who uh was uh the first kind of gem cutter, I guess you would say, that we interviewed, through to Michelle, whose episode dropped last week, Justin Prim. You know, all of this, all of this stuff has an incredible history and it's an amazing process. So we're gonna unpack it a little bit today.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, we're gonna refer back to some of the stuff that they have said and sort of package it up all quite nicely. So, like you said, we first of all spoke to Aria, and like so Aria started cutting quite a long time ago now, and his knowledge of cutting stones and designing them and all that research that he's doing into curundum is like wild. He knows a lot of stuff. And if you are interested in getting into cutting gemstones, then he has a series of videos on YouTube which are really, really helpful. He basically goes step to step, there's a whole series of them, you can watch them. I think he filmed them quite a while ago, but they're still totally relevant, and it's very good to watch those. I do warn you though that if you start watching them, you will watch hundreds in a row and want to buy a fasting machine. Also, the stuff that you said about cutting stones, like the interesting stuff that he's doing that l that make it sort of a bit more unique, like the video game stones that we spoke to him about, which is kind of how we Lucinda came across him. Tell us tell us.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, so if uh anybody missed that episode or maybe doesn't know this deep lore about me, I grew up playing video games and I also grew up on the internet. So I actually discovered Aria and Michelle in their work through a subreddit, Shiny Precious Gems. I would definitely recommend it, guys. If you it's a closed community, but once you join it, you see so many amazing gem cutters and their work and really unique stuff. So I would we were approaching Aria specifically to talk about the Rupee cut, which is based on the Legend of Zelda video games, which I grew up playing. But he's also done like he's made all the spirit stones and has done the Void Reaver cut and all kinds of just amazing, interesting, quite boundary-pushing cuts of stone, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, when you get into the gem cutting community, if you like, a lot of people mention Aria's designs and they're like, Oh yeah, I cut this stone. And so I'm on the UK Facet Cutters Guild WhatsApp, and lots of people share stones that they've cut recently, and they're like, Oh, I cut this in Arya's design, and yeah, he's he's a he's a big player, as it were.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah. And that everybody's sharing their designs, which means that um people like Simon, who are doing this at home, can make these amazing cuts without having to figure them out, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

You can literally go on the internet and put in faceting diagram, and there's whole lists of people that have cut stones, and I think you can even filter it by the person that's designed the cut. So you can see Arya's cuts and you can print them off and cut them yourself.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

He does like it if you tag him, but it's his design though.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Credit work to do always. And you spent some time with Justin, that was such a fun chat. How's he getting on?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah, so I was at the NAJ Valuers conference, that was last weekend, I think.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah. Time flies and you're having fun.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

And I bumped into Justin, because Justin was giving a talk there. Um, I had breakfast with him, talking to him about how his uh new teaching facility in Lyon is going and how he's running his classes. He's got one on at the minute, I think. He gave us a talk on historic gemstone designs, which links back to his his second book, which is the historic teachings of gem cutting. And uh he particularly mentioned one of the things he mentioned in his talk was the old mine cut and how he has found an old mine cut from like way, way, way back when, scanned it so he can sort of tell you how to recreate the thing in its in its full glory, so you can cut it exactly as it was all that time ago. But then he has also given it kind of a modern upgrade where it sort of prov improves light return, improves the symmetry a little bit. So cool. If you buy the historic teachings of gem cutting, I think it's called, then you can have a look at that and cut some of these old designs and modern versions of them that kind of look the same.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

That was one of the things I love talking to Justin about as a history geek myself, was he's so knowledgeable about the history of gem cutting, how stones were fashioned, like from way, way back when. And also this beautiful space he's putting together in Leon functions as a museum. So he's got all kinds of like old lapidary books and jet old gem cutting machines. Really, really cool guy.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah, and it's a totally different angle to how Aria is approaching things and yeah, like talking about the history of things and how things have developed. He also told us about a uh there's a pendant in the VA Museum called the Prophylactic Pendant, which is from the 16th century, and it features a garnet and a periodot, which Justin Tells told us is quite extraordinary in its detail and how it's been cut. Like back then they were using that hand crank machines, and everything was really super basic and rudimentary, and they've managed to create this quite complex and actually quite symmetrical design. So if you go to the VNA, you can find the prophylactic pendant and you can see that.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Excellent. And guys, a fun reminder, which I've discovered in the last couple of years, all of these catalogues are actually online. So if you go to the VA website, you may be able to see it even if you can't make it to the museum.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, exactly that. Yeah, you can literally Google it and you can see it. The stones are quite nice colours, and they're like they're cut in a way that they shouldn't have been able to be cut back then. So cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Was it aliens? That's what my mom would say.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Probably probably aliens. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

It's always aliens, that's the answer.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah. Um, and then last week we introduced you to Michelle, who uh um so I was talking to Brian, who is my my friend in Oregon, um, about the episode. He said he listened to it and he said it sort of gave sort of heartened him listening to that episode because she spoke about not being super precise, making things look nice, but not being not sort of killing yourself over the detail, which I think is really important, particularly when you're starting out doing this, to um yeah, produce things that are nice to look at because that's effectively what we want from our gemstones, and not beating yourself up over the precision. Not to say that Michelle doesn't cut stones that return like beautifully. And like she's doing herself a disservice by saying she's not a precision gem cutter because like she really is, but a custom gem cutter is what she calls herself, and uh not getting hung up on the sort of minute details and things, influenced a lot by floral designs and things like that. Things that look pretty, which is what people want.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

I was actually on Michelle's uh website yesterday, just checking it out, and guys, she's still open to commissions, so make sure you check out her Instagram, which I think she's on a little bit less now, but her website is still up and accepting commissions. I want one so bad.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah. You've got to um yeah, we'll get her to get her to do one for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I will, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Okay, right, so let's get into the nitty-gritty of what's in the course notes and what we actually need to know. Uh when we were doing the Dramology course at GemA, I didn't know anything about this. And more or less, rather than understanding this, I was kind of just remembering the stuff that was written in the in the course notes and I d didn't really have a very deep understanding. I mean, the stuff that we talk about in this episode about diamond manufacture is still going to be sort of the same sort of thing. I don't really understand that. We've got like an idea of how it goes, but you know, we're just taking it from the course notes. So blame the course notes if like you would disagree with anything that we say.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

But and do let us know so that we can do a correction for the people.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah, 100%. But uh essentially the process of fashioning gemstones is to bring out and maximize the beauty. In other words, make it worth some money, maximizing maximizing profit, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

So there are two types of fashioning that you need to know. What are they?

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Well, one of them is lapidary. This is the one that Simon understands more and is getting involved in, as well as all of our previous guests. This is the art of cutting and polishing gem materials other than diamond. So a lapidary is the person who performs this, not a lapidurist. Just Simon thinks that's the most logical term, but it isn't. So it's lapidary and a lipidary. Same word, easy peasy. And most modern gem cutter cutters actually refer to themselves as a gemstone faceter or a gemstone cutter. That's mostly about this additional level of precision that we're demanding in our everyday online gem cutting world, where lots of stuff can be done with machines and things like that, uh, or with computers rather. And the other version concerns diamond. And as with many things, diamond, it has its own special terminology. What's that, Simon?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, so when you're talking about cutting or faceting a diamond, you don't call it lipidry or gemstone cutting. It's known as diamond manufacture, and that is how you should describe the fashioning and polishing of diamonds.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

And in fairness, it is slightly quite some of the processes are very quite different because diamond is such a specific stone in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, the mechanics I think are pretty similar, but actually being able to cut a diamond is a pain because obviously it is the hardest thing known to man, and getting facids and cuts on a diamond is super, super difficult. So, yeah, diamond manufacturer, not a lapidary.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

We'll get it twisted, guys. As Simon says, the techniques are similar in some way. So diamonds and gemstones do not come out of the ground polished and beautiful and sparkling and ready to set in jewelry, right? They are dug up, they're mined, they're picked off the ground, they're picked out of alluvial gravels, and they are rough. Rough is the technical term for it, but it is also how they look when they are in their natural uncut state. So some grow into very beautiful crystals. For example, a perfect bright red spinel octahedron, as you can see, I have my amethysts like all girls from LA, but they can't really be set or sparkling in the way that they would if you cut them.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah. Do you know what's interesting about spinel octahedrons?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Tell me.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

They're always red.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Have you never seen one that isn't?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

I don't think so, no. Anytime I've ever seen like a perfectly formed spinel octahedron in the flesh, it's always been red. So if anyone out there has seen one, that is like a really good example, a lovely octahedron, spinel crystal that isn't red, please let me see it because I I'm I'm yet to come across one.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Which is someone on Reddit has a blue one.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Okay, fine. Well I want to I want to see one in person.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

A quick Google would have dispelled this mitza.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

But it it's still a myth in in person. I've not seen one in person.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

I mean, for all we know, ChatGPT coloured that blue.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Also, I've got some props here today. So this is a bag of garnet rough. So if you've got your if you've got if you're watching and not just listening, then I've got some garnet rough here, and then I've also got a little bag of some other shit in here that's pre-formed already. I don't even know what some of this stuff is. I think some of it's topaz or whatever. But yeah, this is kind of how your rough comes, and that's how it looks. So more or less picked up off the ground and given to me to try and turn into something else.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Nice. When I first started shopping for gemstones, which was very much in the context of like healing healing crystals, I'm from LA. I was always really surprised at how cheap, like genuine garnet rough, and citrine rough and things like that could be. And then you get in the trade a little bit and you realize first of all, these are unusable any other way, usually, if they're being sold as rough and well, to on chains to girls like me. And second, so much of the labor it comes in at the cutting stage. That's where the real expertise comes in.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah. So you've got your you've got your rough, which is like this, which is literally rough.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Simon is holding up a bag of lumpy earwax, basically.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

A bag of lumpy earwax. Yeah, literally. But then, like you said, you've got also your beautifully formed crystals, which are quite rare because let's think about it. If you got spat out of a mountain and then thrown down a river, you're not gonna look very clever. And it goes it the same goes for any sort of gem material. If you're if you're picking it up off the ground, it's got a pretty hard journey getting there. So it's gonna look a bit battered, it's gonna look like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

It's been a long time in that river, right? It's been a long time.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

It's more like rounded, pebble-like, but in essence, it's survived. And you know, you might see a couple of remnants of crystal faces, and a couple of these have got sort of like flat faces on them, like, but on the whole, they're kind of like water-worn pebbles and things like that. But within that stone is still this gemstone, and uh you can you can bring out that beauty by cutting it.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Indeed. So you've got your rough, what happens next? As Simon says, it needs to be cut. So you need to assess it. You are going to look at the rough that you've got and note any considerations on how you might want to approach the cut. And most of the time, you're gonna want to be adding value, right? So there is a very careful balancing act that you need to be thinking about every time you're evaluating rough. What is that criteria? It's a combination of yield, transparency, inclusions, optical effects, color, cleavage and hardness directions, and durability. So there's a lot to keep in mind. And all of these factors are kind of going through your lipidary's head as they're planning what they're gonna do. Simon, let's start with yield.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah, so when you've got your rough, what you need is one of these. This is a torch. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I thought that was something like a dentist drill. That's a very impressive torch.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

So this looks like something that Doctor Who would own. Um and you need you need one of these because you can place your stone over this torch and shine into the rough so you're really gonna get a good idea of what it looks like inside the stone. And you're gonna be able to see the inclusions and things. But mostly your um so first of all, we're gonna talk to you about yield because yield's really important, and yield is the weight of the rough versus the weight of the cut stone. So weight retention here when you're collecting stones is of paramount importance, um, and you want to maximize or indeed minimize waste, and that often comes at the expense of other factors like the clarity or the colour, particularly in the mass market. So if you're cutting stones like in Thailand, they are maximizing the weight retention as much as possible. And they might the cut might not be quite as attractive or perfect, but you're going to have a stone that weighs more because effectively weight equals value. Uh so you're you're going to want to look at the stone and be like, right, well, that's going to lend itself best to being cut into an oval, for example. In the tourmaline episode, we told you because they're like long, thin crystals, and the f the faces of the prism will lend themselves quite nicely to a keel of an emerald cut of an emerald stone. So you're more or less just sort of cutting, you're not cutting a lot a lot of material away. You're leaving it and polishing it, and the outline of the rough crystal is more or less going to be the outline of the bottom half of the faceted stone.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Indeed. The next thing you're going to be thinking about is transparency. If you can shine a light through the rough gem material, it's generally a good idea to facet the stone. This is our rule of thumb. Translucent and opaque stones are more suited to cabochon cuts or beads or decorative carvings. And as all of our guests have told us, actually, a transparent stone can be cut in such a way that it maximizes light return from internal reflections, which makes the gem super bright and sparkly. If your stone is opaque, this isn't gonna happen. So the argument is what is the point? I think in some very rare circumstances like panties, black sapphires, it might just be kind of fun and cool. But you know, if you're mind side in one of the like Sri Lanka, why why are you gonna bother?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

You're like faceting at a high level is about making the stone sparkle and then making the stone return light. And that is very much the case with diamonds. And that's exactly why there are very precise and exact proportions and angles which are utilized to create that fire and brilliance that we've told you about before. We'll go on to telling you about what they are in a bit later. But a precision gem cutter like your Arias, like your Jeff Haitmans as well and Michelle, they are utilizing this relative to the materials refractive index and the critical angles to maximize light return in other gem material other than diamond as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Another thing you're gonna be looking for at that big torch is inclusions. These are not always bad, but they are avoided if possible, and you kind of want to position them somewhere outside of the fucking smack dab center of the stone if you can. Except in some cases for like a perfectly polished or perfect. Sorry, I do speak English. Uh a perfectly positioned horse-tail inclusion in a demantoid garnet, for example, will actually increase that stone's value. So cool. And you want it positioned directly down the center of the table. In the case of like a fingerprint and a sapphire, however, that is not what you want. You want that stone to be as eye-clean as possible. So you might want to shove it over to the side or at the bottom. And you have to make that decision when you're planning your cut. Do you want to remove it? Where do you want to position it? Or do you want to leave it and maintain the yield or the color of that stone? So heavily included stones are often going to be fashioned as a capuchon because you just can't make that math math.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah. And then the next thing to consider is the next thing to consider is does the stone exhibit an optical effect? So we've talked to you previously about asterism, chatoyency, things like that. These things hinge on the stone being cut in a certain way, i.e., with a domed surface, so as a cabochon. And the orientation of the phenomena causing needle-like inclusions need to run perpendicular to the base. So you will often see, like, for example, a natural star sapphire has this nicely domed top, but the bottom half will sort of be quite messy and lumpy and quite deep. And that's because not only are you cutting it to show off the optical effect, you're still trying to maintain some weight. That weight's not really doing anything other than adding the value because it weighs more. It doesn't weigh more because it's because it looks nice, it doesn't weigh more for any other reason that it just weighs more. So that's why we keep saying that yield is critical.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yes. Remember, guys, everything is priced per carat unless it's something really small and shitty. So every like every.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Literally, especially particularly if you're on like a boundary between a one carat or you know, like you if you're gonna cut the stone. Yeah, you're always gonna try and get that two in there so it weighs a two carat something rather than a one point nine something. Always, always, always, always.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah. Next thing you're gonna consider is color. We have managed so far, we're not even done with it, five episodes on this subject. If you are too many to count.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

If you are dealing in colored stones, something like sapphires, this is going to be huge. So many people pick the color of their sapphire just based on the color alone. So you're thinking about it all the time. Color orientation and retention is critical. You're looking at color zoning, you're looking at the Depth of color, how do you retain that? You're looking at pleochroism. So, for example, a nicely defined and separated color in ametrine quartz, where it's half citrine and half amethyst, would be completely wasted if you couldn't see both of those colors in the face-up position. You know, there's no point in a amethyst and then citrine. In fact, I bet that looks pretty unattractive. And then you have stones like tourmaline, which are strongly pleochroic. So if you place the table facet in the wrong place, you're going to get the most unattractive possible, like dark, dark green color. Whereas if you turned it, you would actually have quite a lovely stone.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, and you can utilize that. So if you've got a particularly light tourmaline, you're going to cut the table so it so you so when you're looking down the C-axis, you're looking straight down the table. That's going to darken a light coloured stone. And the opposite is true if you are going to s put the table where the prismatic faces are, that's going to lighten the stone. So you've got a dark stone that way. If you've got a light stone that way.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

It really speaks to the importance of understanding your materials. And so does this next one, which Simon, when you think about this, do you not get worried as you're cutting stones?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Well, I shall tell you. Um so we're going to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Sorry, it's got a story.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

This is cleavage and hardness direction. And the one to be aware of here is Topaz. This is the poster boy of cleavage when we're talking about cutting stones. So Topaz, as we know, we've told you, has perfect, easy basal cleavage, and orienting the table facet so it can be viewed by looking straight down the C-axis is an absolute no-no. Because when you're polishing the stone, you're basically polishing straight along the cleavage plane, and you're just going to be sort of shearing material away. It's just going to be sort of like falling off, and you don't want that because the table's the most important thing to get a really good polish on. So they say that you should have a minimum deviation of about five degrees off the off the C-axis so that you're not polishing straight along the cleavage and uh having a real trouble, real trouble polishing it. Having said that though, um opaz rough, as we know, because we've told you that as well, is often prismatic and sort of long and narrow. So if you're going to cut a stone and you're trying to maximize yield, you're not really going to be cutting the table across the C-axis, because you're going to have quite a small stone and you're going to be wasting all that length of length of crystal. You would logic would have it that you would place the table where the prism faces are. And I asked so I asked the UK Faset Cutters Guild a question, how scared should I be of the basal cleavage in topaz when I'm cutting topaz? And the unanimous answer was pretty much not very. So don't worry about it, in other words, because if you put the if you put if you drop the stone where it's most logical to dop it, and you are going to be maximising your yield, i.e. cutting a long narrow stone with a table on the long on the long edge, then you're not really going to be polishing along the cleavage direction anyway, because obviously your pavilion angles are going to be angled in and they're all naturally already going to be angled off the cleavage plane. So yeah, apparently don't worry. But I'll keep you updated when I actually start cutting the topaz that I have. Yes, let us know how to do it. Ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

And at that point you've already done so much work.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Yeah. So you need to be so you need to be careful, but apparently don't stress about it too much. Topaz is actually okay to cut, but like as it I'll update you.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

It's also not crazy expensive if you really fuck it up. Next one, slightly related, is the stone's durability. And I just think it's so important to understand the materials that you're working with at every stage of the process down to selling. And this is durability, is why. Understanding a gemstone's hardness or toughness will help a lipidary decide which shape to cut that stone into. The classic example, of course, is the emerald cut, which is octagonal, elongated with truncated corners. I think as Craig once said to us, the corners are gonna pop off anyway. So you might as well just get it done before you set that stone and it becomes a problem. Emerald obviously is brittle and multiple small facets or pointed corners are super susceptible to breaking. So just take them off and you're good to go. Every gem material, of course, is gonna have its own considerations before the cutting can commence and will have its own most appropriate approach. Hardness is another thing to consider for similar reasons. So stones that have a low hardness, basically lower than quartz, so like around a seven on the most scale, generally those are gonna be more suited to cabochons because that rounded shape is less prone to damage. Opal and amber are good examples of this. Of course, having a an amber and cap on cabochon, and even bezel set did not save my Mexican red amber from utter destruction.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Poor, poor.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

I know. I need to get uh Ceneal to free cut it from me, but I'm gonna lose so much weight.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

That is a shame.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

It is. It was before I became a gemologist. I have like what I didn't know any better.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

No, just you know, clattering it around, not giving a care. Drunk as as always.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

So those are our considerations, Simon. Let's get down in the weeds, shall we, on diamond manufacture.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah. So diamond, as we know, also takes the form of an octahedron crystal in the most part. That's two four-sided pyramids on top of each other connected at their base. That gives you eight sides. So traditionally, before mathematics and science got involved, we'd have the old mine cut, which we mentioned Justin is bringing back to life and people are very fond of nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Like Taylor Swift.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

That essentially takes the shape of the rough, cuts one of the points off, and applies some facets for a bit of sparkle, and rounds off those sort of edges and straight lines to make a sort of cushion-shaped outline. These are super, super popular now. Uh fashion dictates that. Taylor Swift has one, for example.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Zoe Kravitz has her second one.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Zoe Kravitz also has one. She's going out with my sister refers to him as the king of pop, which actually is a source of great annoyance to me.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

He is, I would say, the most famous man in the world.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

I don't want I don't want to alienate listeners that like Harry Stells, so I should probably stop.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yeah. Don't be judgy, Simon. No, but I will be judgy though, because Zoe Kravitz, she works with uh Rebecca McCormack, and she has her second Jessica McCormack, sorry. She has her second Georgian uh cut-down engagement ring. The first is from Channel Tatum, the second from Harry Styles.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

So she she so there you go. This is she these are the facts, these are the trendsetters. These this is the reason that you like them. Um but also because they're like actually unique, a bit different, and I think this is a um this is backlash from the sort of perfect synthetics that we see nowadays, synthetic diamonds. Yeah, it's like it's cool, they're nice, they're individual. Um, but if you wanted to start cutting one, then Justin's your guy.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Now, Sammy says here that, oh my god, I sorry, the old line cut developed in the early 20th century into what we call the old European cut. So this is has a more round outline, and we have better technology and better understanding of the material to thank for this, basically. The more you understand something and the better your uh tools are, the better the results. We still have that characteristic Kool-Aid, which is where the bottom facets all meet and the point is removed. It kind of looks like there's a hole in the center of the stone.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Why do you go on?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

So the reason for that is basically because we're not cutting things at the perfect angles, we're not cutting things at the on the you know, yeah, because nothing it doesn't meet perfectly in the middle. So in order to counteract that, you cut the bottom off to try and center the center point because it doesn't naturally center. So you cut that off and try and create the create the hole in the middle to be in the middle because your point wasn't in the middle, it was slightly skewed. So you're you're straightening everything up by cutting a hole in it, basically. Not the same.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

That makes me feel better about it. Yeah. It could be called an open cool-aid as well, or cool it, if you really hate the French.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, because we don't we don't hate the French in any way.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

We love the French.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah. So as a old cut, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Well, I was just about to tell you.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

I know you were.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

In 1919, a man called Marcel Tulkowski published a mathematical analysis of the diamond design, and this heralded the birth of the very famous round brilliant cut. I'm not a round brilliant girly myself.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

No. I mean, you know, I'm I'm I'm all in favor of this new trend of things that are less than perfect, especially as I've started cutting stones because none of mine are perfect. Because I'm not yet very good at it. So if we can embrace the imperfect, then I'm gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I believe in you, Simon.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

But the round brilliant cut was basically designed to for ideal proportions to maximize and balance the light return, fire, sparkle, and brilliance. The combination of that is what we refer to as scintillation. So let's start by talking about how we get a round brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Well, it all starts with the diamond octahedron. So a well-formed diamond octahedron crystal can create two round brilliant cuts. It doesn't necessarily maximize yield, perhaps 50% of the rough weight over the two stones, with an approximate 70-30 split across the two. So one a little bit bigger, one a little bit smaller. But this is the quote unquote best way to cut a diamond to produce the best effect and far and away the most desirable, and it's going to command the highest price, right? Therefore, the reward outweighs the loss. This cut forms the basis of all brilliant cut diamond shapes with modifications to create different outlines and shapes, which is why if you look at a diamond report and the shape is pear, it will say modified pear brilliant, for instance.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah. These other shapes are often dictated, again, by the rough. You're assessing the rough. A non-perfect octahedron that is distorted in some way might lend itself better to a pear shape or an oval. And a twinned crystal, which we know is called a mackle in the diamond world. Only if it's a diamond. Only for the diamond. We only use the mackle term for a diamond because diamond's very special. Um a mackel might be more suited to an emerald cup because it's kind of a bit flatter, it's a bit longer, like there's a big, big, flat surface on it. Normally, when you've got big flat surfaces, we're going to talk emerald cup because they have a big flat table. And when that's the case in diamond manufacture, this ruff is known as a makeable. And that means that you don't need to separate the stone into two or three different parts in order to get a stone cut from it. Not like the coloinan, which was like knocked into multiple stones. It's a makeable is basically going to yield one stone from the ruff.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yes. Shall we talk about some types and shapes of cuts? Guys, this is a very uh, I was gonna say lore heavy, but it's not, it's actually vocab heavy. Very vocab heavy section. And unfortunately, you do need to know all of these.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yes, you do. So this is a great time for flashcards.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I keep threatening people to release my flashcards, and I never do, so I'm gonna do that this week.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Someone's actually requested to me that you would share them with them. I can't remember who he is now.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

But I know, I feel like it was months ago. I'm going to do it, guys. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Okay, good. So tell us about the types and shapes.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yes, Simon, but first, let's take you around a gemstone. Let's give everybody the proper name so that we know what we're referring to. First, the girdle. This is the outer edge of the stones, like the outline. It's going to be either faceted or smooth, and it follows the rough shape of the stone, right? When the girdle is polished, it's called polished. When the girdle looks a little bit less reflective and more matte, it's known as being brooded. We'll talk to you about brooding in just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yes, we will. Then we have the table. So the table is the biggest, flattest, uppermost facet. So that's the flat one on the top that you can see into the stone from.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

And then we have the crown. This is the top section of the gemstone. So it's the area above the girdle line. So basically where it goes like this. Is that helpful? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Very helpful. So it's above the girdle and below the table. So it's the bit the beer in between. Exactly. The bottom half, so the bottom half of the stone is called the pavilion. So that's beneath the girdle, the one that sort of goes to a point or a keel, as it were. That's the facets here beneath beneath the girdle.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

And then we have the cool the koulet or the coulette, which is the very bottom tip of the gemstone. This is where everything comes together to a point, which can be flattened ever so slightly, uh, which which would then make it a Kool-Aid facet. And this serves to protect the very sharp point from damage, or with older gemstone designs, like the old cats, as we were discussing, it hides the fact that not everything meets as nicely as you might want it to.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yeah. So if you cut it off, nobody's really gonna know.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

I'll tell you, I have that family diamond I have has absolutely no fire. It is dead.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Well, yeah, maybe it needs a recut. Or maybe it's gonna be very popular. People like it.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah. I unsaid it myself with some pliers and now it's just sat there looking kind of sad.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

I feel very sorry for it.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

I do too. All right, so those are the general, this is the anatomy of a stone, shall we say. Now let's talk about brilliant cut stones.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Yes. So the shapes of brilliant cuts, obviously, we've got the round brilliant cut, which we've just gone over, and then we modify that into different shapes. You've got a pear, which has a pear-shaped outline, the oval, oval outline marquise, which is kind of like a sort of pointed canoe. A radiant cut.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Selena Gomez engagement ring is the Marquise.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Does she have a does she have a Marquise cut? Okay. She does. Nice. A radiant cut, which is kind of like an emerald cut shape, and uh like a rectangle with the corners cut off, uh faceted to give better light return in a brilliant style. So you'd have a modified radiant cut stone or a modified octagonal. I don't know what it's called on a certificate, actually. Whatever. Princess cut is square with sharp corners, and then a high school. Yeah, which definitely princess cuts are not very popular. Although actually, maybe they maybe they're not.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

We've just done two and they looked really cool and fresh in a way I did not expect.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

These these things come in cycles like seller. Don't sell off your princess cuts cheap just because no one wants them because in a few years someone will.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Someday.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

And then we have the heart shape.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Same cannot be said for the heart shape.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Oh, anyway. Do you see a feature for the heart shape?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

A heart shape looks like a heart and is and has the same arrangement sort of as a as a round brilliant cut. All to promote the sparkle and the brightness and the fire and the brilliance. Obviously, not doing it as well as a round because round is more symmetrical.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

So, next up, this cat the next category is step cut stones. So, where brilliant cut stones are kind of trying to maximize both fire and brilliance, step cut stones are much better for brilliance. So those flashes of white light, if you have a stone with good color and transparency, you might consider cutting a step cut. Beyoncé has an emerald cut diamond, which is flawless. So they cut it as an emerald cut because it just displays that better. This cut essentially draws the eye into the stone and consists of parallel stepped facet. So either leading up the crown towards the table or down the pavilion to a keel, like on a boat. And the shapes include the very famous emerald cut, of course, baguette cut, tapered baguettes, and other variations like trapezoids and trillions. Because you don't get that fire. I see them used a lot more frequently as side stones, probably.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah. And a step cut.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah, so you like your baguette cuts and your taper baguettes in particular. So a baguette cut is a rectangular stone with sharp corners, and you definitely often see those as side stones because you don't necessarily have to put claws on the corners. The reason the corners are cut off on an emerald cut or a radiant cut is so that you've got place to put the put the claws and then they're not on the extremity of the stone. Whereas with a baguette cut, because you're setting it horizontally, you can put little claws or a like a or a bar even to s to set the stones to sort of wedge it in. And that uh they look they look nice as side stones in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah, I love them. Now, guys, as we mentioned before, a step cut will show inclusions in diamonds more, so you might need to go for a higher clarity grade on your emerald cut because there just isn't that fire and brilliance to distract from what's going on inside the stone. You want a stone that is as glassy and perfect and icy as possible for something really impressive.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Yes, I would agree.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Next up?

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Another stone or another cart is the rose cart, which dates back to the fifteenth century. Now, Justin showed us a painting of like an old, a very old painting, and there was he sort of zoomed in on it and there was a picture of a man wearing a rose cut stone, and this might even pre-pre date the fifteenth century. I can't remember what date he said. But basically this consists of a dome, but the dome in this case is faceted and then has a flat base. So the dome on the top has kind of like a checkerboard of triangles on it. He also so the one that in this picture that he showed us, rather than having triangular faces, had sort of like rhomb rhombus-shaped cuts on it. So like they were four, they were four-sided. It was it was really cool. Again, you can see this in his book. It sounds like if only he was paying me to promote this book, that would be great, but he's not. But it's I mean, it's the book, the book's good. So like I'm just doing this real charge because it's like it's got loads of cool historic information about gem cutting.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

I'm gonna pick it up for sure. Um, it for the celebrity gossip heads out there. Lily Collins has a rose cut ring that was stolen and was just returned to her.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

I don't know who Lily Collins is.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Emily in Paris. Next up, if you're doing Gemma, this is one to get familiar with. It is the mixed cut. This is the commercial colored stone cutting world's best friend. Like I feel like everything we did was like square mix cut, oval mix cut. Most color gemstones that you see are gonna have a mixed cut. And what this basically means is it's got the top of a modified brilliant crown cut or cut crown. So it's got the top of a brilliant basically, and then a step cut pavilion on the bottom half. And this is used to preserve weight and increase depth, which also serves to deepen or enhance the color. So the light is gonna stay in the stone longer, have more time to bounce around, interact with the coloring elements, and the stone is going to appear more vivid.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yeah. Uh then we're getting into sort of proper madness, like fantasy cuts. So fantasy cuts require different machinery than your sort of simple faceting machine because we're not just cutting flat facets on the stone now. We're actually cutting you're you're getting blades and cutting into the stone and creating sort of like nice patterns, fancy patterns. There's quite a lot of Instagram accounts where they do really cool fantasy cuts. Brian has just bought a fantasy cutting machine and has been experimenting with that. So I wish you luck with that, Brian, and how you how you get on with that.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

John Dyer is a very famous fantasy cutter, isn't he?

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yeah, I think a lot of those I don't know who John Dyer is, I'll be honest. A lot of a lot of fantasy cutting stuff. Like uh Ida Oberstein, I think, is a place where they sort of experiment a lot and there's a good place for cutting stones, and I think you get a lot of fantasy cuts out of there. But I mean people are sort of that there's a British guy that cuts them as well on Instagram that I've found and like, yeah, really like they can look mental.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Mega, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah, and you're kind of creating these patterns and shapes and and things that you can see down the table that just wouldn't be possible by just cutting flat external facets onto the onto the from the divine to the extremely ordinary, non-faceted stones, the workhorse of the gemology world en cavachon.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Michelle calls this the gateway drug to gem cutting, of course. It is the most widespread cut, and it is a domed, polished top and a flat base. The outline can be any shape, it can be oval, it can be round, it can be square, and as we've said, this is used for opaque and included stones or stones with low hardness and or durability. So stones that you physically cannot facet because they're just gonna fall apart. Also, the domed cabochon is critical for showing off certain optical effects, but we've said this multiple times before, guys, or chatoyency or asterism. And the next bit actually did come up in our exam, so pay attention. What are the types of cabochons?

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Well, I was just gonna mention you mentioned that it can have a square outline, and actually a sort of a cabochon with a square outline is, I think, actually really cool. And they call it a sugar loaf, don't they? Yeah. So it kind of has these four corners that come up and it kind of meets to a sort of mini domed point. And yeah, they call that a sugar loaf.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

They look very modern, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, I think they're they're actually really cool. And if you set that into like some sort of gnarly rub overset thing, you've kind of got a good punching device there.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Indeed.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Not that we condone violence.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

No. So what the types of cabochon?

SPEAKER_01 42:26

You tell me, Simon.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Okay, I shall tell you. So this genuinely did come up in the exam. So like it did.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

I remember growing it.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

So types of cabochon are you have a medium cabochon, which has a modestly sized dome. You will have a flat cabochon, which will have a shallower, much flatter dome, a double cabochon, which has like a dome on the top and then a slightly shallower dome on the bottom. Normally the base is flat. And then you will have a hollow cabochon. Now the hollow cabochon is the interesting one. It's also known it's also referred to as the carbuncle, and is used when the gemstone might be very dark.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

So if you've got a really dark stone and you want to try and sort of garnets are a good example of this when they just get so shit, but if you've got enough light in them, they can look kind of red.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

You want to kind of get some colour out of this dark browny red stone. The almondine garnets, like you say, are notorious for this. And uh almondine garnets actually used to be referred to as carbuncles back in the olden days, hence why this cut is called a carbuncle.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

It just brought back so many memories of like how when I went to the diploma exam, I was so just wishing that it was gonna be the foundation one where I could just like draw some squiggly cavishons and call it a day.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah, carbuncle, done. Eight marks.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

There are pictures on the first one. Next up, beads. Look, I know there are haters, okay? I love a fucking gemstone bead. I love them. I think they're beautiful. They are exactly what they sound like they're spheres or they're shaped. You can get little squares and all kinds of madness with a drill hole through for stringing. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

It's basically any sort of gem.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

beautiful, like let the girlies live.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah, totally. And like they look nice on bracelets, they look nice on necklaces and things like that. You're not going to set them in claws because like they've effectively got a drill hole through them. That's why they're called a bead. So you're going to be stringing these, simple as that.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Panny's mom had those beautiful beads that we think were either carnelian or red jade.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Oh yeah, they were nice.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

They were so beautiful. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

What's what's next?

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Cameos and Intaglios.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Yeah. So the famous hematite Intaglio, which was all the rage in the 70s and 80s. It's like a Trojan dude. It always seems to be the same bloke.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

It's the same guy.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

It's the set it's the same guy on all of them. It's like a flat disc of the everywhere in this country.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I've never seen them until I came to this country.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

And and in so an Intaglio is basically when you are cutting a um of something and you're carving it into the flat surface of a gem material. Whereas a cameo is an image in relief. So usually in fact always done I think with a banded material. So you might have like an agate where you've got bands of white and orange or shell for example where you've got the nice pink of the shell and then the white of the shell in layers you're going to get it so that you've got a white layer on the top you're going to cut away some of the white layer to leave an image in relief of a lady's head usually. And the background of the cameo is going to be the nice pink pink shell material whereas the the image itself is going to be is going to be white. But that stands out from the um from the darker background. Yeah. Cameo's ladies in Tagleos just that one dude.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

I read somewhere which might have been on Reddit that the way you can tell if your cameo is an original or if it's from the 1960s onwards is if her nose is turned up it's a modern recreation and if she has a Roman nose like an aqualine nose it's an original.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

That's interesting. And also one way of telling whether it's a whether like a shell cameo is uh proper or if it's an imitation is because it it might have like a curve in it because a shell naturally has a curvature to itself whereas a copies will be dead flat.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Indeed. Carvings, inlays and mosaics there's some other ways to fashion gemstones, but they're pretty self-explanatory. I like an inlay. We asked they asked us a question about inlays.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Did they?

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Inlays was an answer it was about how to use a decorative yeah if something's decorative guys it's a carving an inlay or a mosaic basically yes you're cutting bits up you're shoving it into bits of wood fitting it in mosaics.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah making making a desk carving it into animals things like that. There's a this is generally good for things like that.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

I really want uh or sorry is he onyx there's an onyx rabbit at Marcus I really want.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Oh is it yeah he's cute a lot of jade stuff is carved into carvings and shapes and like animals and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah cuties. I like it. I'm trying to see if I have one. No. Look I have this terrible rose quartz angel my mom got me. How hideous is that there you go.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Yeah that's it can't throw it away because it is rose quartz yeah no more you can't cut it throw it away at all you could sort of make it a bit more gnarly cut its wings off or something.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Does that feel like a good place to wrap up Simon or do you want to keep going?

SPEAKER_00 47:11

I think we should call it a day for now we're going to split this these this episode this topic up into two episodes we're going to get deeper into like the mechanics of actually cutting and diamond manufacturer and lipidary in part two.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

But yeah we'll teach you all about brooding which I think is one of the most fun things you can do with a diamond.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Yes is it? Fair enough. But yeah this is this is fashion fashioning gemstones for your study and a little bit of a broad outline on um how and why we how and why we cut stones and we're going to get more into the mechanics in part two.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Exactly we look forward to see you guys then have a wonderful rest of your bank holiday weekend by the time this drops you will have four hours left of your bank holiday weekend.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Yeah and sunburn by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Indeed. Are you you're doing something nice today Simon?

SPEAKER_00 48:00

It's also the cheese rolling event today is a very Is it yeah so a big a big thing in Britain is uh I think it happens in the West Country where they chuck a whacking great double Gloucester cheese down a hill and people run after it and fall down the hill probably in the city.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

And they throw themselves down the hill to catch this cheese.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

So if you don't know about this or you're from another country that isn't England this is a quintessentially English thing and it's basically people falling down a hill and it's a spectator sport. So yeah check that out. I think it's actually live on the BBC I player today which is weird.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

Well that's those are my plans for the day sorted. Thank you Simon you're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Right. All right guys yeah let's let's let's call it a day there.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Yep. As always guys you can find us on Instagram at FascinationGemology. You can email us fascination at fascination.co dot uk. My grasp of the English language is not great today. I think it's fascination at fascination.co.uk but never mind that's the one that's the one and uh we will see you next week to wrap up season one with our part two on fashioning gemstone.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Yeah just on that that is going to be our last sort of standard episode for a little while um and then we're going to take a little break off for the summer and then come back raring to go with some uh some new episodes. Over that time we might do some interviews and things and we're obviously still going to put some stuff on Instagram so we'll still be around you can still get in touch with us. We're not going anywhere. We're just having a break for the summer.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

A little rest.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Yeah thanks for listening and adios.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Bye guys