ive been cutting for a year ive always did pavilion first but i think i need to try crown first to see how i like it

The answer is that it depends! But, to me it is the wrong question.  The actual question is whether to pre-form, or use the meet point system.  My answer is to always pre-form because the benefits of doing this are clear, and many.  By pre-forming you are maximizing the rough.  You are able to establish the outline based on the rough.  You can establish a proper crown to pavilion ratio. You can deal with color issues like pleochroism, axis orientation, and zoning.  You can remove, or optimally position inclusions.  You get the most posible out of the rough by creating the largest, most attractive, most valuable stone that piece of rough can produce.  It also makes doping easier and less wasteful because within reasonable tolerances it doesn't matter whether the stone is centered on the dop or not. Finally, because it is easier to block in the mains on a preform, it makes cutting much faster.  Most of the material to be removed was taken off during the pre-forming.  This means that of the faceting machine you will be just laying on the facets with very fine grit laps.  In fact, except for blocking the mains you may be just rubbing in the stars and girdles with the pre-polish lap.  Once you have a proper preform you can do either the crown or tha pavilion first with equal ease, and equal result.  The traditional mixed cut with a brilliant cut crown, and step cut pavilion, is probably better done crown first.  The crown is seen both loose and when set in jewelry.  So the crown must have excellent proportion and symmetry.  This is best achieved by cutting it first.  In the step cut the pavilion facets are really just serving as reflectors.  You can get away with fairly large deviations of symmetry, and proportions on the  pavilion in order to maximize yield, and deal with rough shape, color, and clarity issues and still have a beautiful stone.  If you are looking to cut a particular pattern from a diagram it may be best to cut the pavilion first, but still easier and better done from a preform.  

I have always maintained that if you are doing meet point faceting the pattern is the most important thing.  If the most important thing is trying to maximize a piece of gem rough then pre-forming is the method to use.  If you are cutting by meet point you are a "faceter", if you are pre-forming you are a "gem cutter".

Me approaching each stone differently, based on its needs, or my confidence, sometimes crown first sometimes pavilion first

I appreciate the lessons, I found your channel today. I've collected and preformed some emerald to facet soon.

It comes back to what you want to use the stone for. Competition or jewellery

A videotape my last gemstones.  It was recutting a Sapphire.   I did the crown first.


I know for fact You can cut pavilion first as long as you cut the girdle early in the process.

Prefer to start at the top when doing recuts with the crown.
After step  cut  is finished it can easily  be decorated and recutting with a point.

An interesting debate!

Crown first ! Sometimes when recutting a stone to close the window I recut the pavilion first, but this has nothing to do with the meet point technic

Great video Justin always learning from your good self.

I do both. It depend if I believe I might not make it on crown height I do that first and adjust if I don't have space, the pavilion.  Pavilion is easier.  It's not hard to align it imo

I have done both but I have done more meetpoint cutting so mostly pavilion first. But I am starting to want to learn hand performing and practice some of the other techniques. Now if I can just figure out how to preform those tiny stones with my fingers.....

I'd like to emphasize the biggest disadvantage of cutting the crown first, not sufficiently reflected in this video. If we make the pavilion first, we better control the light return and the absence of windowing. We can control the critical angle of the gem with much greater precision than in hand preform. Also, if cavities, inclusions, or fissures appear that need to be removed when making the pavilion, we can adjust it on the fly. If the crown is already made and we make the pavilion later, the only option would be to make a shallow stone with a window.

You are right that most gems are cut with the crown first, but that is because most gems are cut as commercial massive production, for weight, without much regard for the light return and windowing. This way tons of poorly poorly cut gems are produced every day.
In precision cutting we make the pavilion first and it is not necessarily to follow a specific diagram. Personally, when I cut expensive material, I pre-shape the stone quite approximately by hand, mark the plane for the table and then start cutting on the machine, making the contour of the girdle first, then the pavilion, usually without a diagram but respecting the critical angles, and lastly the crown, which is not so important for the light return.

Re-cutting is a different story, here you can start with crown or pavilion, depending on the task you have for recut. But most recutting work is closing windows, so again better pavilion first.

fantastic video - bridged a few major gaps in my understanding.

Hands down Crown First.  Justin you explain it well too.

Great tips. Thanks!

hey man it's cool to hear you say this stuff- I am rather new at faceting, but it come quite naturally to me. Most of the instructions I've learned from don't say to use intuition- you've been very helpful Justin, thank you

For the majority of cuts I do crown first makes more sense but I am still hung up on pavilion first. Since most of us Americans learn the SRB first when starting out we have to retrain our minds to look at cutting from the global perspective. We have mostly precision cutters stateside and I have never seen any of them explore tallowing the table. I appreciate this explanatory video and the others in your collection.

Great video 👍🏻I do both depending on the stone . Thanks 🙏🏻

I just started cutting this last year, summer 2024, and I was taught pavilion first and have really struggled to cut certain designs. And I really think it has to do with that idea, that if there aren’t meet points, I can’t know exactly where to stop my cuts. I still cut pavilion first, for now, but have found that I don’t always start at the culet, I will often start at the girdle and the girdle facets and get everything balanced and meeting at that stage then build up. I still think I’ll come across designs I will struggle with though. A lot of the time every stone I cut has been a new learning opportunity to decipher the best cutting order.

I do both depending on the stone.  I started pavilion first, but I had problems at first with stones falling.  I then learned to go crown first and that fixed all the issues with that.  Transfers..  sometimes I use the jig I have, but it's off on the center so sometimes I'll just stick it on by eye and I don't really have any issues at all with that anymore.  Now I just go with whichever seems convenient at the time. 😅