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Faceted cabochon in Aquamarine

A local jewelry designer had a client who wanted a very special ring with a story behind it. A bedtime story. A father had told bedtime stories, which included castles, to his daughters when they were little girls. Their birthstones were Aquamarine. The father wanted special rings made which reminded the daughters of the bedtime stories with the castle. He also wanted a blue stone to 'show through' the castle windows.

The jewelry designer decided to use a fine quality of spiderweb Turquoise. He also wanted faceted cabochons of Aquamarine on top of the Turquoise so that one could see the spiderwebbing of the Turquoise through the faceted Aqua.

Below you will see some of the steps of the cutting process
and one of the finished rings.

Photo of an oval Aquamarine face down

Oval Aquamarine as rough material

The jewelry designer sent me 2 Aquamarines like the one in this photo for me to re-facet into the cabochon domes he needed for his design. These were probably cut in Brazil.

click this photo

Photo of a partially cut Aquamarine

Shaping the new stone

I need to re-shape the Aqua to the new size and shape.

Here you can see the 'walls' of the new girdle where I have ground the new shape.

Photo showing the first steps of faceting the Aquamarine into a faceted cabochon

First facets

Here you can see teh first facets I have made.

You can see the diamond shaped top facet which I have already polished.

I will use this as a starting point and work my way outward.

Photo showing more facets on the stone.

More facets

Here you can see I have added more facets moving out from the center.

I have to be very careful cutting each facet because if I make one too large, I have to go back and re-facet each of the previous facets to make the sized of all facets balanced.

Photo showing the finished faceted cabochon still on the machine.

Finishing the Polishing

Here the stone is still on the dop stick and I am finishing polishing the last few facets.

Photo showing the finished stone off of the stick.

The first stone is finished

At left you can see the first faceted Aquamarine cabochon is finished.

End view of the finished stone.

End view of finished stone

Here you can see the end view which shows some of the faceting pattern.

Photo of an Aquamarined before re-cutting it and the other one that is finished.

Ready to do the second one.

The first finished stone is sitting next to the next one I need to cut to be exactly like the first one.

Photo of an Aquamarine finished stone and one that is half finished.

Ready to work on the next one

On the left is the finished stone and on the right you can see I have started shaping the second stone with the intent of making it exactly like the first one.

Photo of rough spiderweb Turquoise

Spiderweb Turquoise material

This is the spiderweb Turquoise material with a nice tight and regular pattern and beautiful blue color which I will shape and glue to the bottom of each finished Aqua dome.

Photo showing the Aquamarine glued onto the spiderweb Turquoise

Aqua dome with Turquoise on the bottom

Here you can see the finished Aqua dome which has been Epoxied onto the Turquoise.

To do this, I have to make a nice flat polish on the Turquoise and be very careful to not get any air bubbles in the glue which could show.

The Turquoise looks great when looking through the top of the facets!

The finished ring with the faceted cabochon of Aquamarine mounted in the top of the ring

Aquamarine and Turquoise mounted in the ring

Here you can see the finished ring.

It makes quite an impressive and special ring!

A side view of the finished ring where you can see the spiderweb Turquoise through openings on the side of the ring.

Side view of the ring

Notice how you can see the Turquoise through the little 'windows' on the side of the castle.


If you are designing a ring and would like an estimate, feel free to contact us.

→  Take me back to Examples of Cabochons we have Faceted

 

Denton Anderson,
Gemologist & Gem Cutter
click photo for Video

Photo of Denton the gem cutter.

Graduate Gemologist, GIA, GG
Over 20 years of experience.