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Menu of Gem Cutting Services.

We repaired the chip in the girdle and pavilion
of this blue Sapphire

A Denver jeweler brought us this Sapphire which their customer had dropped while it was in the ring. It landed in a manner in which it hit the girdle and the force caused a chip on the underside of the stone.

They asked me if it was possible to remove the chip without losing much size (width) so that it would fit back into the same mounting.

I examined the stone and the mounting and felt confident that I could do so.

Photo of a light blue Sapphire with a chip in the side of the pavilion.

The large chip on the side of the Sapphire

Here you can see the large chip which starts at the girdle and runs down the side of the pavilion.

An arrow telling users to click on the photo to make it larger.

A conchoidal chip like this is shaped like a dish, and can be fairly deep at its lowest point, making it hard to totally remove without losing a lot of the stone.

Shows me cutting it on my faceting machine.

Starting the process of removing the chip

I use a very fine wheel on the area of the chip and work very slowly.

Shows the same Sapphire with the chip now smaller.

Working on removing the chip

Here you can see that I am taking one of the pavilion facets down in an effort to get 'under' the chip.

s Show the same light blue Sapphire with the chip even smaller.

The chip is almost gone

Here you can see that the chip is almost gone.

While working on a stone like this, I communicate with the jeweler to let them know how it is going and what the size is. Sometimes the jeweler decides to leave a very small amount of the chip in place in order to save as much of the size of the stone as possible so that it will fit back into the same mounting. The tiny remnant won't even show.

Shows the same light blue Sapphire which has now been repaired and is sitting in the diamond ring mounting.

The finished Sapphire in the mounting

I have finished the stone and placed it back into the mounting.

As you can see, it fits just fine in the mounting and the store was very happy.


→ Take me back to examples of Repairing Faceted Gems . . .

 

Denton Anderson,
Gemologist & Gem Cutter
click photo for Video

Photo of Denton the gem cutter.

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