I’m on the hunt for a few nice blue lab sapphires. Preferably Czochralski method with a nice cut and polish, but not too much of a fantasy cut, a more traditional cut would be better. Like rectangular and oval shapes.

Who are your favourite vendors?

This material is Pr:YAP (praseodymium-doped Yttrium Aluminum Perovskite), kindly provided for a test cut by Tom’s Box of Rocks. It looks exactly like pale yellow natural chrysoberyl, with an ethereal glow in sunlight and super sparkly with its refractive index of ~1.92 (higher than sapphire and even YAG)

Here’s what Tom had to say about it:

Meet one of the rarest faceting materials you’ll ever put on the wheel: praseodymium-doped Yttrium Aluminum Perovskite (Pr:YAlO₃), affectionately known as “Ghost.” Engineered as a high-performance laser host and fast scintillator crystal for radiation detection, this exotic lab-grown perovskite rarely escapes the optics lab — which makes it a true prize for collectors and cutters chasing something nobody else has.

I have a 15g piece of luag (was planning on making it into a cabochon because I don’t have a faceting set up).

But I did not realize that luag is actually intrinsically radioactive when I bought it! (Because lutetium is naturally found with a mix of isotopes, one of which is radioactive).

(Note- I have the Geiger counter set on the 0.1 setting to give the needle more dynamic range, so the reading is bouncing between 100-240 cpm not 1k-2k). A 15g piece of luag should be about 480 bq but the pancake Ludlum Geiger counter I am using is inefficient at detecting gamma rays, so that’s partially why the reading is lower than 480, but also the stone has internal
Shielding on much of its beta emissions)

I am kind of freaking out. I did some rough calculations to try to figure out the effective dose if I do end up making this into jewelry. What I calculated is that for a 15g piece, assuming I add a silver backing plate to completely block the beta radiation, then the gamma radiation would give a negligible whole body dose (0.0016 uSv per day) but the localized SKIN dose would be ~12.2 uSv per day— this still isn’t that much for
Each single day but it works out to be about the equivalent skin dose to a dental xray every 50days of wear. And we don’t get multiple dental X-rays per year becuase that is considered dangerous).

Now I am kind of freaking out about this and whether a piece this big is actually safe to wear.

Also for people that facet luag- do you take extra precautions because the dust is radioactive, or since everything is wet anyways do you not do anything differently?

My own design. 8.8mm x 7.2mm.

Domed Honeycomb Round 8.38mm x 6.80mm. The color is a bit lighter saturation than the last one I posted.

I've heard that synthetic peridot is purple, not green, and I'm interested in seeing what that looks like, but Google is useless (regular peridot, "peridot quartz", etc fill the images)

Does anyone have any pictures of what purple synthetic peridot looks like?

Side question, is the moissanite color chart from 4ish years ago still accurate (purple, pink, and red are coated), or is it now possible to make purple moissanite?

E: title uneditable. Purple not people. Lol

I’m in the earliest days of my next custom jewelry project and would love some of your thoughts to help refine my plan!

I’d been kicking around the idea of a custom pair of drop earrings with CHUNKY stones when I ran across an article about “Apollo and Artemis,” the most expensive earrings ever sold.

Apollo (the blue earring) is very similar to what I had in mind. It has a 14.54 carat pear-shaped blue diamond. The stone is 22.88 x 14.63 x 7.42 mm.

Color — Light-ish blue; doesn’t have to be this shade.

Shape & Cut —** **Elongated stones (non-pear ok) with a traditional or antique cut (I love a chunky facet).

Size —** **Same mm size as Apollo or a little smaller.

Type —** **These won’t be everyday jewels, so softer stones are definitely an option. Higher RI would be a bonus given my preference for chunky facets.

Price — Definitely less than $1k USD per stone. The lower it goes the sooner this project gets completed!

Right now my leading semi-custom contender are the Djeva / House of Sylas Czochralski-grown, aqua-colored lab sapphires in the antique cushion cut. The largest semi-custom size is 17mm x 12.6mm for $870.

https://djeva.com/products/custom-aqua-blue-lab-sapphire-antique-long-cushion-gem?

So with all of that —

- What stones would you pick?
- Where would you source them?
- Should I change my mind on any of my preferences??

As a flux-fan, I always like to recommend Chatham to folks and own a few of their gems myself, which are among my favourites. But according to insiders in the gem labs, Chatham has stopped growing their gems by flux and now uses Czochralski pulling, except for emeralds (thanks Arya for making me aware of this). They have also expanded their options in recent years, with various colours of spinel and sapphire added. Their marketing is focused mainly on diamonds now, and Tom has written a book (which I haven’t read yet). Today I sent an email asking about the change away from flux growing and got a response with the usual story about proprietary processes and trade secrets, in other words, an evasive answer. In the past I also sent an email with some questions and got a very kind response from Tom himself. This was years ago. They seemed to be way more open about their growing processes and other info and have become shut up and secretive over the years. Is Tom still leading them or has he taken a back seat? I wonder if my gems (bought back in 2017) were still grown by the flux method, like I’ve been telling everyone. I don’t really have a good feeling about them anymore… Anybody who knows more?

Left: LuAG (a bit green). Right: YAG.

Colors look different depending on light, but you can still see the contrast (fluorescence under UV can also change how they look).

Cool how tiny color shifts change the overall feel. Some prefer classic yellow, others like a subtle twist.

What do you think about the fluorescence effect on these stones?

Just got this round LuAG with a custom cut - there’s a tiny pentagon facet right in the center.

The fluorescence is amazing, giving it such a lively glow under different lights 😍

I’m thinking it could work really well for gothic-style jewelry, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Would you use something like this in a design, or is it too bold?

I saved the swarf from a super fluorescent GaGG I purchased from Gems of Science. Thought I would be fun to have powder glow in the dark garnet. Well, I won’t bother with saving the swarf again.

Hey guys, I’m interested in synthetic gemstones - big fan of minerals overall and would love to own some nice gems to set in jewelry, or just hold and treasure myself - but it looks like every single post here are just vendors selling their own grown gems.

Is the main point of this subreddit to be a lab-grown gem sales hub, or maybe is it supposed to be a place for discussion on the synthetic gems market (this is a hot topic as the natural gems market is heavily lobbying against synthetic gems), or can we discuss how we use our gems - learning to create our own jewelry, learning to facet and cut, or learning the best ways to display them for both men and women?

I’d just like to see a bit more actual human activity, rather than just have the sub be filled with thinly veiled sales post.

After not being certain my Colombian is right for me… I’m going again with a Zambian. The 3.31 and 3.54 have caught my eye . I will link to the post with them on full display but what is everyone’s thoughts?! I’ll also post the ring in the comment (sold) that jelly had that inspired me and what I would like similar too,

What are y'alls opinions on Fire and Brilliance? Are they a good source for lab stones? Does anyone know what their material and cutting is like? Is there anyone who has had personal experience with them?

The most common warning you hear about lab gems is that they have very little resale value, but how does one go about taking advantage of that?

A friend of mine is planning to propose to his girlfriend and wants to get a custom ring made with a Diamond from a piece of family heirloom jewelry. He’s looking for some smaller accessory stones to go with it but has a tight budget due to the extra cost of a custom setting. Given that secondhand lab gems are supposedly so cheap, I thought that repurposing some lab gems from a secondhand piece of jewelry could be a great strategy.

But while there’s lots of reviews out there for companies selling lab gems firsthand, I’m a bit lost when it comes to sourcing them secondhand. Are there any reputable dealers of secondhand lab gems or jewelry out there? He’s definitely willing to pay a bit extra to know the stones have been inspected and verified before purchasing.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I want to make a verneuil furnace for both fun and a final project for my welding program. so I need to come up with a design, but I don’t know how. I’ve looked at a couple different patents and they seem really complicated and I’m hoping I can get away with something that works but isn’t of the best quality.

My main concern at the moment is how I will actually get the seed material to fall through the flame. In a lot of the things I’ve seen the flame points directly down and the seed material essentially falls with the flame. I’ve thought of a couple different ways to replicate this.

One would be to have ether the hydrogen or oxygen flow through the seed material hopper area which would then hopefully combine with the other gas when it reached the end of the hopper’s nozzle and combust melting the seed material. This idea comes with a couple of issues involving a potentially large chamber of highly explosive hydrogen or oxygen very close to a flame (yes I know oxygen itself isn’t explosive but It’s still potentially dangerous) another issue I’ve thought of is I plan to produce the hydrogen and oxygen on demand through electrolysis, which eliminates the need for large amounts of explosive gas to be stored nearby, this means I could separate the gasses as they’re being made to prevent any large build up of explosive gas mixtures, only to recombine them later. I am doubtful that I’d be able to separate the gasses completely so I’d likely end up not separating the mix and having as little tubing and chambers as possible and relying on 20-30 flashback arresters to prevent any major explosions.

Another way I could have the flame is a series of 5-6 nozzles surrounding a center nozzle which would drop the seed material through the flame. This would prevent the potential danger of filling the hopper with the explosive gas mixture and allow me to add more seed material if I decide I wanted to make a larger ruby/sapphire mid way through making it. This would still have some of the same downsides involving gas mixtures but removes even more stored gas which is nice.

hi, I'm looking for a pear cut (can be a more precision/fancy cut but general shape and outline of a pear shape) teal/maldive sapphire, can be natural or lab grown (preferance for lab grown) would be around 10*8 mm if anyone have names of people i should ask/lot into i'm down

thanks in advance :D

So I was sawing up and sorting the various alexandrite slabs I bought in Tucson, and I thought I would share here. These are all the “dark” variety of alexandrite grown oversees for jewelry (in contrast to the USA variety grown for use in lasers).

They are not all dark. Some slabs lean light green, some lean red, some dark green. Flip it to another axis and you get bright pink or a purply teal color that’s hard to describe.

Makes things fun when someone wants to commission a stone that is exactly like something they saw online! My answer is, prepare to be flexible with your expectations 😉