The Eclectic Lapidary is currently undergoing renovation.
We'll have new issues soon!
INDEX
|
|
Jon Rolfe's Home Brew Faceting Machine
(final installment)
|
|
by Cate Harrison and Jon Rolfe
|
This month concludes our multi-part series on the design and construction of a home-built faceter. Thanks to Jon Rolfe, I am very happily and productively faceting with the one that he helped me build, as we have detailed in these past few Low-Budget
Lapidary columns. Jon tells me that several people around the globe are currently in various stages of completion of their own faceters. This month, Jon presents his carefully drawn machine diagrams, and also shares some important closing thoughts at
the end of this column.
Now that I have seen commercial faceting machines in action, I can honestly say that I like mine just as well. I have already begun to customize it and modify it to suit my faceting style, which is something I would not likely do with a factory machine.
I firmly believe that building my own equipment (in this case with generous and much-needed help) has forced me to learn my craft more deeply than if I were able to use "plastic power" to create my lapidary workshop. To you new and potential faceters, I
say welcome to a wonderful and rewarding hobby! Jon has given us an excellent roadmap with this series of articles and his excellent drawings. You can use them to better understand how a faceting machine works, and thus how faceting as a process works.
You can also take on the task of building a machine of your own, or you may decide to buy one of the many excellent machines on the market. All of them will permit you to facet
lovely stones (though some machines may require more patience than others, I am told). These choices are all up to you. What I hope you've gotten from my part of this series of articles is the knowledge that it is possible to build this thing, given the
right expertise (in yourself or willing accomplices). Remember -- it's not rocket science. Now let's take a look at Jon's drawings....
[Jon's excellent diagrams are available at http://www.prime-x.net/~prime8/why.html.]
The foregoing article describes how we built the machines. It is a guideline and a story, and not necessarily a step-by-step "kit" instruction, though there is sufficient information to anyone reasonably skilled to complete one. There is considerable
latitude in design and in choice of components and materials.
For example, one person, who appears to be winning the "completion race"
has decided to use tapered roller bearings in the quill housing. Good! And one person was able to find a piece of centerless ground 1" shafting in a salvage yard, from which the mast was made. Great! This is how money
can be saved, with a little effort.
The article was written so that people who might never get to enjoy faceting can enter the activity without spending thousands of dollars. Perhaps someday, they may choose to buy a slick, pretty commercial machine. But they will have learned to facet by
then, and will have produced many beautiful stones while learning. And as well, building the equipment can be as enjoyable as using it. It gives one an understanding of how the facets are generated, and what the geometrical considerations are, in a
"Learn-by-doing" atmosphere.
And can the average person build the machinery? We faceters have a very lucky situation in that there are hundreds of times as many skilled machinists, tool and die makers, Trade School students and instructors, and
other craftspeople than there are faceters. Everyone probably knows someone who can help them, and I have found that many of these people with strong mechanical skills are intrigued enough by gemcutting to become interested without TOO much bribery and
persuasion. Many of them have seen TV ads of gemcutters cleaving diamonds in the back of a Lincoln Continental, and other misrepresentations and glorifications in the media to have become curious. But beware of one thing: You do NOT want to quickly try
to learn faceting with a huge backlog of promised emeralds! That qualifies for Combat Pay :-)
Slowly and carefully building the machinery, step-by-step will also develop
these habits which you will need when you cut your first stone. As an exercise in patience, little can compare with faceting your first table! As an experience in accomplishment, seeing your first faceted stone in the sunlight for the first time, with
the brilliance leaving afterimages on the eye, is second to none. You will compare it to the too-shallow commercial ones, and laugh.
Later on, you may elect to build more equipment, or to make your own laps. Having built a faceter, there is little left to intimidate you.
Have fun, save money, and maybe even MAKE some!
Copyright 1997, Jon Rolfe
New URL
Gemcutting
DIY Faceting Machinery
|
|
Copyright, 1997 by Cate Harrison and Jon Rolfe
|
Cate Harrison learned her love of gems in childhood from her mother, who among many other accomplishments is a collector and dealer of jewelry and art. Drawn first to bead weaving and jewelry fabrication during graduate school, Cate quickly gravitated
toward lapidary, where she has found her true calling. Cate is now completing her PhD while faceting as in every available minute and continually developing her and her family's facet rough and gemstone business, Aragon Gems.
Cate is available as a speaker for club meetings and events throughout the midwest, and volunteers frequently in the public schools, where she believes that lapidary and geology provide an excellent opportunity to show children the beauty of science and
mathematics.
|
|
