Gem cutter Oxnard

There are four basic styles of gem cutting and these range from the simple form that any hobbyist can master and does not require great artistic skills to extremely complex cuts where a sense of art and knowledge of the formation of the stone comes into play. Gem cutter Oxnard has mastered all the forms of tumbling, cutting en cabochon, faceting and carving.

The simplest of these gem cutting techniques is tumbling. Basically the rough stones are put in a revolving barrel with abrasives to simulate what happens naturally to rocks in a stream bed or on the beach The tumbling uses progressively finer abrasives to obtain a much higher level of polish than would naturally occur. This form is limited to amateurs and is not what a gem cutter like Oxnard would undertake.

Cutting ‘en cabochon’ is probably the most common form of gem cutting that gem cutter Oxnard practices. Gems that are cut with a flat bottom and a curved or domed top are called cabochon.

A faceted gem has a surface covered with several geometrically arranged

flat surfaces called facets. The gem, usually a diamond is faceted, by gem cutter Oxnard on a faceting machine. The end result of faceting brings out the brilliance of a gem by ensuring that the light entering the stone is reflected off the bottom facets and returned to the viewer. One can become good at faceting with little experience and it is always challenging. Those people who are good at mathematics often excel in faceting.

There are two basic styles of faceting: a brilliant cut and a step cut and these two styles are 0ften combined by gem cutter Oxnard. An ancient technique called a ceylon cut and one still used in Sri Lanka today has a step cut pavilion and a brilliant cut crown. Computer studies have shown that the reverse, a step cut crown over a brilliant cut pavilion, will often produce the greatest brilliance.

A South African diamond cutter, Basil Watermeier developed the barion cut which is a method of putting a round brilliant pavilion into a fancy shaped gem. It normally has a step cut crown as well which has the effect of resulting in far greater brilliance than other methods. Some gems combine faceting and cabochon cutting. A gem with a faceted top and a flat bottom is called a rose cut. Occasionally you will see a gem with a faceted pavilion and a domed crown, but this is not a standard method of cutting by gem cutter Oxnard

The most challenging of the gem cutting arts is carving and there are few recognized experts in the field. One must have a distinctive artistic sense to e successful in this field and a thorough understanding of the formation of the gems which are being cut. The best known type of carving is cameo usually cut from agate but . cabochons are also often carved. When a design is cut by gem cutter Oxnard into the top of a gem it is called an itaglio, or a relief carving however if the design is carved on the back, it is a reverse intaglio.