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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: June, 2020

A GEM CUTTER’S JUNK BOX

Posted by Site Moderator Webmaster on Thursday, June 25, 2020, In : Faceting 

Duncan Miller

After several years, or after many years, a gem cutter lands up with a junk box. Mine contains disappointing stones abandoned in disgust and partly-worked stones that came over the years with various faceting machines and batches of rough. As a lock-down project I decided to see what I could make from the contents of the faceting junk box. (There are another two – one with cabochons and another with broken synthetics. You never know, you know…)

To make it something of a ...


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A MINERAL COLLECTOR’S SHOW BOX

Posted by Site Moderator Webmaster on Thursday, June 25, 2020, In : My Collecting, My Collection 

Malcolm Jackson

The Blue Lace Agate article by Jo and Duncan in last month’s Mineral Chatter inspired me to make a box and as I had some really nice pieces of Yellowwood around, I got sawing and made the box you see in the picture. I made the box 300 mm × 400 mm × 100 mm deep. I hope to catalogue the specimens and add some artwork. I also want to include Jo and Duncan’s article in a booklet format.



I wanted to house some of my Blue Lace Agate specimens that I had collected over many...
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TIME

Posted by Site Moderator Webmaster on Thursday, June 25, 2020, In : Mineralogy 

Duncan Miller

Our individual lives are so short, and geological time so long, that it is difficult to comprehend ‘deep time’, the most awe inspiring aspect of geology. Geologists often seem to work in units of a million years, as though that is the basic unit for the passage of time on Earth. So let’s make some effort to comprehend geological time – after all it is what makes geology tick.

Consider a rare, long-lived human life span of 100 years. There would be 10 000 of those in a ...


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The World of Tourmaline (in brief)

Posted by Site Moderator Webmaster on Thursday, June 25, 2020, In : Mineralogy 

Peter Rosewarne

I’ve borrowed the title of a new coffee table book by Gerhard Wagner for this article as it seems appropriate in that the Tourmaline Group encompasses some 14 species currently and it is found in classic localities around the world. The idea for doing this article came from a comment from Jo that EXCO had raised tourmaline as a possible discussion topic. I also have and have had quite a few tourmaline specimens in my collection over the years and have attempted to limit dis...


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