A jewelry designer sent us these cuff links which they wanted inlaid with Onyx. They wanted the Onyx to be faceted across the top. They wanted equally spaced bar cuts.
I did the calculations to get the angles right for a nice arc across the tops of the stones. I think they turned out nice. They sold those and I have done a couple more pairs for them since we did the first set.
The first step is to fit the Onyx to the mounting.
You can see that I have already carved the Onyx into an 'S' shape which fits tightly into the mounting.
I have started making the first facets on the piece after having calculated the angles I will need. I may need to make some slight adjustments along the way.
Here you can see that I have all of the facets in place except for the center facet.
The tricky part in a faceting job like this is, getting all of the facets to meet in the middle perfectly aligned. Because if they are off even slightly, the eye see it.
The next steps are pre-polishing and then polishing.
Here you can see that all of the facets now have a high polish except for the table.
To do the table I will need to mount it differently to put it on the lap at 90'.
Here you can see the finished faceted Onyx in the cufflink mounting.
We make the ends of the Onyx polished flush with the ends of the cufflinks.
Here you can see the finished set of cufflinks with the faceted Onyx.
I think this design is an eye-catching and bold design for men.
Denton Anderson,
Gemologist & Gem Cutter
click photo for Video
Graduate Gemologist, GIA, GG
Over 20 years of experience.
