Can mosquitos even suck blood from a leech? I feel like blood probably doesn’t taste as good when it’s secondhand.

OMG that fire is insane!! Your son is really doing an amazing job, you must be so proud! I guess you could even say he’s… brilliant 🤣

The faceting community would welcome anyone who wants to create a wine pairing guide for our lickable rocks.

Our girl just had a TPLO in January. The day she comes home, have zero plans and take off work. Your pup will need your companionship because they will feel so traumatized and confused. The next day was a lot better, she was bearing just a little bit of weight.

My dog is always tough and pretends she has no pain, coupled with the pain pills she acted like she could run marathons a week in. It was A LIE and we had to put her on anti anxiety meds to chill her out so she didn’t damage her hardware. 12 year old dogs should not have zoomies but she just felt that good. 😩 Don’t be shy asking for anti-anxiety meds to mellow your pup out if she’s normally an energetic mess. It helps a lot.

Jumping on furniture was also a problem. We ended up putting our mattress on the floor and sleeping there for six weeks so she wouldn’t jump on the bed. We also bought dog beds and put her favorite blankets on them in EVERY room to bait her into not jumping. It mostly worked. Mostly.

We’re two months in now and she’s doing awesome. She had a bad few days last week, after sleeping on it funny, that scared me because she refused to use the leg at first but she just needed time to heal from her self-inflicted discomfort and she’s walking normally right now.

You’re question has seriously amazing timing. Two weeks ago I would have answered you with “several thousand dollars” because the machines that were on the market are all very expensive.

However, last week a passionate faceter came up with an economic solution for those who don’t have thousands to throw at a fancy machine. By modifying an unusable machine from Amazon, you can make it a viable option for faceting and it costs about $500. It will be without bells and whistles but it’s perfectly usable.

https://store.turtleshoard.com/pages/cutkit-one-get-started-faceting-for-under-500

The only other thing you would need to budget for is your rough, and that’s only expensive if you want it to be. If you have local metaphysical shops near you, they often sell quartz pebbles for like $5 and I faceted several of those as my first stones. 😉

Of course, if you want to try before you buy you could look for a local lapidary club or gem and mineral society in your city - send them an email and ask if they know anyone who teaches faceting. I did this and I was very happy to have the experience!

I have been excitedly waiting for you to post your moissanite results!! It’s gorgeous, excellent work! That sparkle is really something isn’t it?

I’m not actually sure. Typically faceting uses water to keep the stone cool while grinding. The water would dissolve the sugar and the friction heat would melt and move the candy ever so slightly so I’d never get a perfect polish or accurate meetpoints. If an oil coolant was used, I’m not sure the stone would be edible after… And that doesn’t even touch on what a nightmare it would be to clean sugar out of my equipment.

Conceptually, with a lot of foresight, you might be able to do a really crappy faceting of a piece of candy. Realistically it’s a nightmare idea and an expensive mess.

I can confirm it it does NOT taste like one!! 😭

Jjjjooooiiiinnnn uuuussss 🧟‍♀️

It’s not a silly question at all 😄 faceting is one of those rare hobbies to stumble across in the real world.

For perspective, this stone took me about 8 hours to cut, so this little comment probably makes the execution sound simpler than it is. Most faceters use a diagram to cut which tells them the precise angle as well as location on the the stone to cut that angle.

We glue our uncut stone to a stick, called a “dop”, to attach it to our angle machine.

We have spinning discs, called “laps” that are basically like sandpaper but made with diamonds instead of sand. When we cut the stone we start at very low grit laps which will cut fast but leave behind deep, rough scratches, then we progress to finer and finer grit laps until the diamond scratches are so microscopic that to a 10x magnification the stone still looks flawlessly polished.

We do this grinding technique to one half of the stone at a time, typically the pavilion (the backside of the gem) first and then the crown (top half) second.

Crylos has actually posted a much more in depth how-to earlier in this community if you want to drive deeper into the rabbit hole of faceting.

In this stone, the frosted facets are actually un-polished areas of the stone, so the snowflake you see is actually very fine scratches that aren’t bouncing light correctly, creating the “line” appearance. There’s multiple facets on the crown, so it is bouncing the “line” appearance through different angles, making it look way more complex than it actually is.

Here’s a photo of the frosting lines on the pavilion. Deceptively simple compared to what you see on the final product, isn’t it? 🤭

For synthetics I have two go-to vendors.

https://store.turtleshoard.com Turtle’s Hoard stocks a lot of weird, interesting, science-y facet worthy materials. The Christmas Garnet is worth a gander, I’ve got a piece of that I’m holding on to for a rainy day.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TomsBoxofRocks Tom sells more “traditional” synthetic material, like corundum, CZ, and nanosital. He has a lot and you can find some cool color change and bicolor versions. I find his corundum is competitively priced with Joe Henley so check them both when you’re shopping.

I had this vendor recommended to me by my mentor, and recently bought from him: https://www.westerngem.com His website doesn’t display well on mobile, the pictures rearrange in strange ways, it’s better with a desktop browser. He sent me a complimentary citrine when I placed my last (rather large) order. Everything was exactly as described and the topaz was even more blue than the picture suggested!

Joe Henley is an amazing resource! Everything I’ve gotten from him has always been on point. I just wish his shop didn’t auto-sort with most expensive first because it is such a tease 😭

jjjjjooooiiiiinnnn uuuusssss (mmmmeeee) 🧟

Well in that case…!

https://store.turtleshoard.com

His synthetic stocks vary but if you’re nerdy, you’ll find lots of weird and cool things to facet. I faceted the PET scan LYSO pixel for my stepmom who is a doctor and she geeked out SO hard.

This particular rough was his needled moissanite. I really want to try his dichroic next!

I’m a sucker for a princess cut, and this one is gorgeous! I haven’t yet cut zircon but I have my first rough to experiment with, any forewarning/advice you’d like to share before I find things out the hard way? 😂

I’ve been wanting moissanite rough for a bit, and there’s a vendor who specializes in synthetic stuff who stocked this particular rough piece. I don’t want to test the boundaries of this sub’s rules but if you want to know the vendor’s name you can DM me.

As much as I profess to hate faceting it, I am low-key wanting more rough so I can cut more sparkly things 😍 foul seductress, why must thy rough be so ridiculously expensive per gram!

A rock band! 🤣

Arrrg my fat girdle habit strikes again! I definitely do regret not cutting it farther down. I’m going to give the spray bottle a try, I’ve got a lovely misting bottle that will probably work wonders for the job.

I agree with you the light return on it is lovely, I really dig the cut. I’ll keep practicing it and hopefully improve my technique.

Even with the unfortunate inclusion, it has a hella cool color!

Your son is quite talented! How much longer until you have to buy him his own machine? 😂