Want to see some more gem cutting? Check out my faceting playlist here!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjiZQYgSA0yoY2DbEh-JY9Y5eDU-OoeAc&si=1uao7TM7xZnDpkZJ

& feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you want to see next :)

I knew a friend of a friend (both lapidaries) who passed away at about 60 years old. He passed because of liver failure (he didn’t drink). He would cut several gems a day. His doctor determined that he destroyed his liver by dipping his hand in a jar of acetone several times a day. He used super glue for his initial dop and epoxy for the transfer. He would put the gem and dop sticks in the jar with acetone to dissolve the super glue from the first dop. The doctor told him your skin soaks up acetone like a sponge. After 40 years of faceting his liver was destroyed. That is also the reason they now make acetone free nail polish remover.
You don’t use an acetone bath but you do touch it. I used to do the same but now I avoid touching it and breathing the fumes. Alcohol (isopropyl) is also absorbed but not as readily as acetone so I avoid it as well.
Please feel free to share this info on a video if you like. I don’t want anyone to find out they are going to have health issues or die because they were doing something they thought was harmless!
I have never used wax for dopping gemstones. I use it for cabbing but always thought it wouldn’t hold a gemstone. I will give it a go. I use a cotton swab to put a small amount of acetone on the superglue to release the crown dop.

Shine on!

As a jeweler, I’ve also experienced joint pain in my hands from time to time. What really helped me was gradually strengthening my hands using a hand grip, along with various strengthening and mobility exercises for my fingers, wrists, and forearms. I found that regularly strengthening the muscles and tendons in my hands helped me handle the demands of my work better and reduced the strain on my joints

"After my shoulder started hurting from splitting rounds of firewood for many, many years, I became ambidextrous with the splitting maul out of necessity."

Maybe someone could engineer a ‘wand’ attachment where you are sitting and holding it in a completely different way.  This definitely looks like an ergonomic problem- easily solved. Would love to give it a try. :)

I really love watching a skilled craftsperson working on their chosen craft, no matter what it might be.  I am not a gem person but this was a fascinating watch.  Good luck with your career.

Your fans in Montana really enjoyed this. Me being one of them. Different colors and heat treating in a educational format, would be my next video request i suppose.

I watched a bunch of your videos since I started watching them about 6 or so months ago, but this was the one that got me wanting to go find my own gems. I had heard Montana had sapphires but I hadn't really cared until I saw this one, then I had to go find one myself. Man did I love digging through that gravel getting so excited finding all the small ones and then just floored finding a big one. The best part for me was seeing everyone around me get so excited when they found a big one, and how happy everyone was when someone got to ring that bell. I may never cut a stone myself, but finding them brings me so much joy. Thank you for sparking an interest I didnt know I had!! It was definitely worth the 5 hour detour! Now the long wait for the heat treatment and cutting to be done.

I have never seen that process before.  Very informative and interesting.  Nice result!!!

I also want to preemptively apologize for how much I talk about my thumb/hand hurting in this video 😅 It’s definitely been a struggle to deal with, but I figured it would be better to share it here instead of not posting!

Just found your channel. You have a very relaxing way of explaining things. Some helpful tips. 1) Always wear gloves when dealing with Acetone(or any chemical). Skin absorbs then and they end up in your bloodstream. 2) Wear a mask, chemicals,micro dust etc. Protect your lungs. 3) Train your fingers,wrist and forearm. There are plenty of exercises you can do while sitting/relaxing and you will see great improvement in the long run. Love your work. :)

I could watch & listen to you all day!
What a Beautiful Mind, a True Gem Ur. I will be back to learn more of Ur
learned expectations and there are No mistakes…!!! Thank You, Gorgeous. Keep on, Trucking

Cool skill.... you are living the Dream!

I can't help but notice that everyone seems to be using pretty much the same standard round brilliant faceting diagram when cutting sapphires, at least the one you're using has the lower pavilion angles, albeit still optimised for quartz as is the norm.
With quartz the minimum pavilion angle is about 40.5⁰ hence the angles chosen on the diagram.
With corundum the minimum angle is about 34.6⁰ so there's plenty of wiggle room if you need, i tend to just pick an angle that suits the rough I'm working on rather than sticking to diagrams to strictly anyway.

I have noticed however, that you tend to cut a lot of Montana sapphires, and, with their tendency to be rather flat and tabular like many umba sapphires, cutting such stones a little closer to the critical angle could well be useful to maximise the width of your final stones;
Generally speaking you should be able to cut the pavilion facets in at anything above 35⁰ without any significant windowing occuring, many people suggest 38⁰ & 40⁰ respectively for a s.r.b.

Personally speaking, i tend to err on the side of caution myself, and, thus i typically add at least half a degree above the minimum pavilion angles for whatever gem type I'm cutting.

Having said that, there is an obvious trade off when reducing the pavilion angles, that trade is between colour saturation and light return, so with pale stones i tend to find myself sacrificing light return for depth of colour, however, in most cases a step cut will do considerably better at maximising the colour saturation and weight retention than a s.t.b. would.

No doubt you probably already know all this and I'm just typing to hear myself think in a way.🙄

Whilst I'm on a rant i may as well mention that there seems to be a wealth of information/free software/faceting diagrams available now.
Not sure if you use gemcad or GCS for faceting diagrams yourself or not, but, as far as I'm aware gemcad for windows is free now, and, failing that "The Gemology Project" has a few hundred different faceting diagrams that are free to download, however, it's important to check the authors' footnotes before cutting them as some are only offered for non-commercial cutting purposes.
After having typed this last paragraph i just happened to notice that the faceting diagram you're working off was a gemcad .gem file where's the face-palm emoji when you need one.

The stone turned out beautifully, as if there were ever a doubt it would. Definitely a good result indeed, good size, good colour saturation, and, quite good light return considering the inclusions. Thanks for sharing it.

Such a gorgeous color! Love that pale blue.

thanks for recording these, helps new cutters like myself learn and get inspired.

Arm/hand rest and/or a setup that means you don't have to pinch the lap handle will be the best way to prevent hand pain. The brace doesn't stop you from having to tense your hand for far too long. Either that or alternate hands. You ultimately need to manipulate the tool in a different less stressful way.

Now that you have that pad on the machine arm, try using your index and middle fingers to straddle the pad and apply pressure and articulate the machine arm. I think you'll find very quickly that it allows your thumb to remain in a relaxed state, and once you get acclimated to the new grip and feel, you'll also have a bit more freedom in your articulation. I use this technique as an artist, and have been using it for years. It minimizes the amount you need to use your wrist as well compared to the thumb/index finger grip. Hope this helps. Thanks for making these videos, I'm just getting into jewelry, gems and stones as another creative outlet.

Hi Taylor, beautiful work, very inspiring!!
Unfortunately it seems that 80% more women have this issue than men. Also unfortunately I am one of the men who did have this issue. The tried and true method for severe cases is
CMC Arthroplasty. But with advances and medical science they now offer implants sort of like a hip joint for the base of your thumb. This is what I had done as a preserves the strength in your thumb, replaces the joint instead of removing the trapezium bone. When my thumb was getting worse and worse I did my homework, a lot of homework. I went with a Biopro thumb implant. 6 months on and the actual implant is great.
I hope you don't have to go down that route but if you do, definitely look into alternatives to the CMC arthroplasty.
Love your videos, very inspiring as I said!

A hand wax bath can really help with these issues, in Japan it is common to use a wax bath before starting work. This is a great video ❤