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FACETIPS – A GEM CUTTER’S NOTEBOOK

by
Duncan Miller


The faceting articles published over the past few years in the Mineral Chatter have been compiled into a single 128 page document, available for download for those interested in saving all the articles together. To download the pdf file click here.

A 29,18 ct cuprite from Onganja, Namibia, cut by Duncan Miller and now in a private collection in Germany.


Browsing Archive: September, 2018

Geological Tour of the Rosh Pinah area

Posted by Site Moderator Webmaster on Tuesday, September 25, 2018,
Since we have never fully explored the southern parts of Namibia before, we decided to head up to Namibia a few days before the planned start of the FOSAGAMS Namibia 2018 tour to explore the area. Heidi Naudé from the Pretoria Club put us in touch with Gisela Hinder who owns the Rosh Pinah Geo Center and after some discussion with Gisela on our interests, we pre-booked a guided geology tour with her. Our first night in Namibia was spent camping along the Orange River, and a casual walk acros...
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FaceTips for October

Posted by Site Moderator Webmaster on Tuesday, September 25, 2018, In : Faceting 

By Duncan Miller

This was another jeweller’s request. The setter had broken one of a matching pair of blue-green stones, destined for earrings, bought by the client in India as emeralds. They were apatite; but nevertheless the broken stone had to be replaced to fit the already-made setting. Fortunately I had just one piece of blue-green apatite that matched the colour. In order to produce a stone of the same size and proportion I had to replicate the oval precisely. I could have slapped fa...


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Southern African Lapidary Stones to watch out for

Posted by Site Moderator Webmaster on Tuesday, September 25, 2018, In : Lapidary 

Verdite

Verdite is a fairly soft South African stone found in the Barberton area. It is often seen in African curio shops carved into animals. Its golden flecks distinguish it from buddstone which is a much harder metamorphosed chert. Even more distinctive is the “leopard rock” which is spotted serpentinite, also from that area. JW

 

Buddstone



Leopard rock

 

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