Cutting a First Gem on the CutKit™1 Faceting Setup with a Vevor Machine
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- This is a step by step walkthrough of how I cut a stone with the CutKit1. with this setup you can start faceting for under 500 dollars including some starter rough!
For the setup video see • Setting up the CutKit™...
Music:
A Cup of Tea, Cue and ooame by TAD opengameart.or...
Perces by poinl opengameart.or...
Le Bleu and Dreaming of You by Komiko loyaltyfreakmu...
Slow Stride by isaiah658 opengameart.or...
Richer than You by Pro Sensory opengameart.or...
Darn you Dan Hurd! Now I have a new fascination. ADHS/Autism be darned as well... lol Subbed
ONE OF US ONE OF US. xD
This has kept me interested for a long time my ADHS friend
Literally same haha
adhd brought me here as well and now I'm just waiting for my machine
The fewness of the facets with this style makes it even easier to understand why gems with rectangular outlines and facets cost cost so much more than round brilliants; if the symmetry is off or the reflectivity is not in sync from side to side, if the facet junctions don't line up correctly, if the polish is off, if the girdle isn't consistent, all of that shows and if the gem specimen isn't near flawless, there's nowhere for the flaws to hide. Even watching this at double speed tells you how much labor and focus is involved. Bravo!
Learned a few tips for my vevor, thank you. Very fun cutting some quartz into srb’s
Got my CutKit and vevor assembled and I'm ready to jump in today! I notice on the pattern it shows handling G1 and then P1 and P2, and then G2 before P3 and P4, but it looks like you start with P1-4 before going on to the girdle. Obviously that works just fine, but I'd love to hear any thought process behind it. It seems to me it would be easier to handle it as you do in the video, so your girdle lines up easily, but that makes me wonder why the pattern is written differently. Thank you!
I might have made a mistake in ordering on the pattern. I rarely share diagrams because I'm not great at ordering them logically.
Thank you i am looking for an affordable lapidary machine like this.
You beat me to a review on one of these, i actually really appreciate jt. Also the kit is genius. Hope yall have great luck on this, i might just review your kit instead of the vevor machiine alone, cause i wouldnt mind giving a hand to you, actually rather support you then vevor personally
I might save up for this, seems really interesting. Is there any way to design your own cuts? Is there a program where you plot in the angles? Or any resource to learn this?
Absolutely! I made this design in Gem Cut Studio which is incredible software for designing and rendering gem cuts.
How can I order the updated parts for this lapper?
We have the kit in our webstore at store.turtleshoard.com, and the information is collected at www.facet.ing
Thank you so much. This is definitely the ground floor entery point to this trade. Thank you for the quick response. Hope you post more videos soon. God bless.
No lie, I’ve been seriously eyeballing an UltraTec but if you can turn out this kind of work on a $500 setup…. It makes the choice obvious.
Are you selling the parts and paste stick yet? Link please 🙏
Hello. We do have the polish up now along with dop sticks and other accessories store.turtleshoard.com/products/polishing-sticks-for-cutkit
like the sharpie i remember using engineers blue when filing a mild steel surface in my college workshop to get everything level :D
Yup, it is basically dykem
Do you sell the Diamond paste sticks and parts on your site?
@@nasrjewelers we will be putting some up along with other Gearloose polishing compounds
That is so cool and beautiful!!!! I can't wait to get it!
Thanks for walking us through the process.
I am looking up different cutting diagrams but most of them are asking to cut to very specific angles like 42.19. How can I find more diagrams that do not include decimals in their angles? Or how can I cut on this setup to that fine of a detail?
@EventHorizon222 Yeah, that's an artifact of automatically making facets meet in gem cut studio. You don't really need that level of exact precision to cut nice-looking stones outside of a few very specialized designs (i.e., cleopatra's eye). I just eyeball it to be approximately close and it will typically work. If you really want to get the meets to exactly meet you can more finely adjust the angle by slightly raising or lowering your handpiece.
Yeah I started Faceting but took a break. Takes forever for one stone 😂 plus I need better polish
If you need good polishing compound I recommend gearloose battstiks/diastiks 100% they are really nice to use. Faceting is pretty time intensive, especially at first, but fun and rewarding too (plus you can listen to audiobooks)
Hi, how precise is the Vevor Machine in your opinion (compared to your UltraTec)?
Im faceting on a ST-08, a platform machine and have problems with small gemstones
@Isallintor it is nowhere near as precise or rigid as an ultra tec. I have not tried cutting small stones on it. The sterling has a very good reputation, I haven't tried one but it should be more precise than the Vevor/cutkit. The cutkit would be a cheap way to try out the mast machine workflow though.
@@AngryTurtleGems Thanks for the Info. Think I'm gonna stick with the ST-08 for now and save up for an Ultratech, Facetron, or VJ.
In case you're interessted, in my experience with the Sterling: Great for bigger Stones, round- cuts and quick rough cuts.
Problems: Hard to dial in the angle precise (+/- 0,25°) managed to get within ~0,1° with a digital angle readout.
Both handpice and platform remove material from each other by the rubbing motion, which tempers with the precition over time, until you replace some parts and redial the handpice.
The comunication with the manufacturer is problematic, to a point where I stopped ordering spareparts, and started producing them myself.
And as preciously mentioned, the way the handpice is balanced there is a lot of weight put on the stone.
Thank you very much for this very informative tutorial/review. It is good to see somebody had a good experience with this Vevor product.
I purchased the kit and completed the first gem. My only question is how do you avoid facets being slanted? Can you you fix this with the cheater or would I need to shim the mast a bit?
@zachpendergrast3569 there are a few things that can cause that. Usually the mast being slightly slanted vs the lap doesn't have a huge effect on the stone in comparison to e.g. unflatness of the laps. Another cause can be if the index gear has been slightly miscut, leaving some looseness, I ran into that on mine. Or if the collet is not totally tight on the dop or the cheater is not tight they can sometimes allow a little rotation during cutting.
@@AngryTurtleGems I got one of the kits and when set to 90 degrees for faceting the girdle, it's clear that the dop is not being held perfectly flat. Is there any way to fix this? I feel like all of my angles will be wrong
@EventHorizon222 how far off is it? Most of the ones I've bought have been bang on, one was 1 degree off which was fixable by replacing the countersunk bolts holding it on with flat head bolts so you can adjust the position a bit. If it's off by more it may require drilling a larger hole on the protractor to allow more adjustment. This may be a nee vevor qc issue, I just heard from other cutter with the same issue.
@@AngryTurtleGems True 90 degrees is somewhere between the 90 marking and the other mark on the right that boxes in the protractor. Sorry, not sure what to call that exactly.
@EventHorizon222 yeah, this seems to be a new issue, but it's fixable by replacing the bolts. I'll probably be adding them to new cutkits, but all you need are two m5 8mm pan head bolts. The bolts it comes with are countersunk so they lock the protractor in one position but the pan heads let you slide it around before tightening them
Made it look easy
hi, how is your polishing?wtf, I do everything the same, but polishing doesn’t work,400 grid600 ,1200,3000, pandenium 8000 or50.0000 and nothing.... 😢Cooper disk have and battlab
It depends a lot on material. YAG is fairly cooperative but other materials like quartz might not always cooperate. With the copper lap I found going very slow and having a very light charge was important for getting a good polish--a higher charge led to scratching.
Thx, sorry how make light charge I don’t know 🤷♂️:) I take sandpaper 80 grid and make scratches,then take 8’000or 50’000 pandenium and since you used nothing 😢😊used “amethyst”
@makumeganeyt9628 80 grit is very coarse and in addition to leaving deep scratches it will also leave small cracks right under the surface (called aubsurface damage). It is important to cut through that layer with intermediate cutting grits like 240 and 600. Amethyst may not polish well with diamond anyway, quartz can be touchy and prefers oxide polishes.
@@AngryTurtleGems Thanks, I meant the lapping tool for copper and tin disk I make 80 griid scratches in the disk to deepen the polishing paste into these scratches and nothing works with polishing. I don't understand why. I do everything like everything in the video, but nothing =) and cut strips.
@@makumegane9628 don't score laps, it's not necessary and could be the cause of your polishing issues.
🤔🤔🤔
What do you call this job?
If you facet gems full time you could be called a gemcutter, lapidary/lapidarist or a faceter. Many people just do it as a hobby or maybe a side hustle rather than a job.
i looked to buy a vevor after watching your video unfortunately the machine is not suitable for uk use as we are 240 volt
I think that is why they are still selling the older variant there. It works but has some issues with the angle indicator and protractor
Wow, that's really neet. Under $500 makes it something to think about. Can you use olive oil or something like that instead of WD-40? It makes me sick just being around it ❤🕊️
Other oils work too, though I'd avoid vegetable oils that can go rancid
@@AngryTurtleGems Thanks :)
What type of stone is this?
Ir is YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet), a type of lab created garnet grown for use in lasers
@@AngryTurtleGems Thank you! They look really interesting, but also very artificial
@frakkx3491 that is part of what I like about this material--it wasn't made to imitate something natural, it's just its own thing, and the gem usage is totally incidental.
Hi , i just receive today this machine but I noticed that when I manually lift the pen (big gold things where the dop is at the end) to look at gem or to increase the cutting angle the 2 pins on the sides which are used to hold the pen in the angle roll up, does this have an impact on the actual cutting angle? and did you have the same problem?
Also i buy some cutting diamond disk i have : a 320 to make the raw shape / a 600 diamond for cut / 3000 diamond disk for prepolishing (without paste ? ) / and a copper lap with 0,5 diamond paste (its like 10 000 grit i think ) for polishing. Do you think i need more or less lap ? and is the 3000 grit diamond disk fine for pre polishing or i need Absolutly an other copper with less grit paste ?
I have also a 1200 grit diamond lap but i dont think its usefull with lap setup
Thx a lot for those video you help us a lot ! much love
The pins rolling up usually works itself out as the plastic holders wear a bit. It won't be an issue as long as you have the pins seated when you're actually cutting.
3000 grit plated laps are an option and don't require paste, but a lot of people report occasional trouble with them. Something about electroplated laps and finer grits causes trouble it seems, but you'll see how they work for yourself. 10k grit is a bit coarse for a polish--a lot of commercial stones stop at 14k but you can still see polishing lines/fine scratches by eye.
Happy cutting!
@@AngryTurtleGems Hi ! i come back to u because i have done some stone on it already and my polishing on stone is more like ice freezy , we don't see throught .
Do u think its because of my polishing step on my copper lap with a 10k diamond paste / oil ?
Btw i'm waiting to receive a 60k diamond powder , do u think with the same copper lap and this powder the polish gonna be a lot more mirror clean see through ?
If yes ,
Do u think i stop using my 3000 grit diamond lap for prepolish and just prepolish with copper lap and the 10k diamond paste and switch to final polish on same copper lap with the 60k powder ?
Thx for your responses !
@guinardalexandre5320 what material are you cutting? 10k should leave a pretty transparent windowed face on most materials, just with scratches that can still catch the light. 60k on copper does very well for some materials though I find I have to charge very sparingly and spin it very slow.
@@AngryTurtleGems i have cut some fluorite and aqua marine , the result like i said is really freezy we dont really see through and the rough was clear for the fluorite
@guinardalexandre5320 fluorite is very soft and requires special care. Copper laps will be too harsh. Aquamarine should work but you should probably use an oxide polish
First. >:)
How do I order some parts?
We have them available on our site TurtlesHoard.com and all the info is up on www.facet.ing
I had no problem with cutting the first 4 45° angles to a nice point but when I switch to 42 for the second tier it seems to just erase the first tier. Could you help me trouble shoot? Thanks for the great kit!
The second tier cuts in a lot quicker than the first tier so it's a good idea to run the motor slower and use light pressure when you're cutting them in, otherwise it is easy to overcut. It's also a good idea to raise the height nut a bit higher than necessary and very slowly lower it so you can watch the facet cut in.
@@AngryTurtleGems do I need to adjust the height of the arm after changing to 42? Thanks so much!
@@guyaglass yup, the handpiece has to go higher at shallower angles and lower at steeper angles
@@AngryTurtleGems okay great thanks! How do you determine the height change?
@@guyaglass once you change the angle you can raise or lower the handpiece until the stone is almost but not quite touching the lap. Then you can slowly lower it using the split nut until just the right amount is cut in. Then you cut the other facets in that set to the same depth
A major flaw with the design of the faceting machine you're using is the split nut has to be removed to facet the girdle
Looks cool, but is there profit to be had here?
Like how much money did you gain if you were to sell this stone versus how long did it take you to cut it, not to mention the cut of the disposable supplies?
Can a person reasonably do this themselves as a business on the small scale to make a living, without a youtube channel?
I know people who facet professionally but it can be a challenging business. Most people do it as a hobby, maybe occasionally selling a stone here and there. It can be a lot of fun.
@@AngryTurtleGems Drats. Okay thanks. I would enjoy doing something like this full time, but I need enough money to live. I've done too many things that turned out to not sell enough to be profitable
@LeonardGreenpaw the nice thing about the Cutkit is that you can dip your toes in rather than committing several thousand up front
@@AngryTurtleGems yea. But the time to learn the different geometries. Plus various supplies will add up.
And knowing myself, i will also go through the trouble of making the rings and necklaces for the highest profit margin... and then not know where to sell them! And i don't have enough money to start a whole jewelry shop without the assurance of sales
Buy machines made in the USA 🇺🇸 . They are going to last forever . They don’t need calibration. They have the parts and you contribute to local economy and avoid headaches.
Buying a US-made machine is a great idea if you can afford it, but there are many people who would love to try faceting but can't sink $5000 or more into getting started. Put another way, for some people telling them they have to start on an expensive machine is the same as telling them they can't facet. The US companies that once filled that starter niche (Lee, Graves, MDR etc) are all out of business now. While this setup isn't as good as an ultra tec or facetron it is definitely a viable starting point and it will let you get started without spending a fortune.
you can make different size and shapes of hexagons and octogons out of cardboard.. put a stick in the middle of them poking out as your dob stick and can facet stones that way.. its no where as easy as with a machine.. but you can do it by hand.