In the photo below you will see the pink Sapphire which the gem dealer had purchased from a dealer in Thailand.
The gem dealer who purchased this stone could tell that it had potential if it was properly cut. He could see that the gem had a very nice pink color and it was also a very clean stone. Maybe flawless.
Below, you will see photos and description of the cutting process.
As you can see, the shape of the stone is not symmetrical, it is windowed, and it is just poorly cut in almost every way.
As you can see, the original pavilion is very deep and has an emerald cut style of cut on it.
The lower 2 levels of facets are cut too shallow. I will fix that.
The first thing I do with a stone like this is to fix up the shape and make it symmetrical.
One of my goals, in addition to closing the window and making the stone more brilliant, is to save as much of the size of the stone as possible. As such, I carefully take off only the amount necessary to make the shape nice.
Here you can see that I have added the 4 facets at the proper angles which actually closes the window.
Here I am making the new crown.
Now you can see how much the stone is improved by the Radiant cut pattern which closes the window and improves the color and brilliance.
The Beginning size of this gem was 6.4 mm x 7.1 mm and 2.94 carats.
The Finished size was 5.9 mm x 6.7 mm and 2.12 carats. It lost 28%
If you have any questions about re-faceting one of your gemstones, feel free to contact us for an estimate.
→ Take me back to examples of Re-faceting gemstones to close their Windows and improve Brilliance
Denton Anderson,
Gemologist & Gem Cutter
click photo for Video
Graduate Gemologist, GIA, GG
Over 20 years of experience.
