Talk:Akhavan - Undine's Tears

From The Gemology Project
Jump to: navigation, search

Note: This diagram is one of an 8-part suite of stones. <put link here once I'm done with the suite>

I wrote this design after trying to find a decent-looking pear with L/W = 1.5. Unfortunately for me, it looks like the world has different taste in pears - they're all fat and blobby up towards the point, and they all look like a marquise that's been smashed in at the 96 end. So, I cranked this one out - it's nice and sharp, with a great teardrop shape, like one would expect. The design has great light performance and doesn't have a tendency to crap out too much at the tip.

The design looks amazing in really saturated aquamarine (think True Blue material), but works in anything from quartz to corundum (RI = 1.54 - 1.76) with no changes. In higher RIs, you get a lot more scintillation, but a lot more tiny areas of extinction (looks cool, and intensifies color, but definitely not traditional).


Now...this is HARD. The pavilion may look simple, but the girdle outline was something I got by trial and error. You'll need to follow the CAM preform to generate it, which shouldn't be too hard. There are, however, a bunch of fine details that if you miss, will turn this stone into a living hell to cut.

When you cut X1, if your machine isn't 100% perfect with infinite repeatability, cut on the 03-30-66-93. This will generate your temporary culet, that you cut the rest of the X facets to. X6 will cut away X1:(30-66). When you're doing the pavilion, note that at the corner in 48, P1 and P6 do NOT meet - there's a gap there. When you cut in C10, it only makes a meetpoint at the 48 - it does NOT make a meetpoint with C9 anywhere. After you've cut C10, you'll have two places where C11 could reasonably meet - make sure to choose the meetpoint that does NOT involve C9 (you're supposed to cut through C9 and into C2). C12 is also a fast facet to cut in, and it's very easy to overcut. Finally, the table only meets in two places, and it's also very easy to overcut.

All this, combined with the low symmetry and the incredibly long steps needed, makes this a somewhat difficult, if not annoyingly painstaking, pattern to use.


Difficulty level = perfidious bastardy (but really, low expert)