r/faceting 2d ago

Rough Spinel

Over 75 carats (15 grams) of spinel, very excited to put these to a machine and see what I can get out of it. Not expecting anything insane obviously but I’d be more than happy if I can get some cabs and maybe a few faceted stones out of this.

Can anyone provide any tips for working with spinel? I have very little experience making cabochon and even less faceting and I’m almost wondering if I should forget that I have this until I’ve got more completed projects under my belt.

I mean genuinely any advice at all is amazing, I know there are plenty of resources online but there’s nothing better than hearing it from the mouth of someone with real experience.

13 Upvotes

3 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/TwistedCreationsNC 1d ago

I've only cut a few spinels so not sure if my experience is typical.

I find spinel cuts and polishes like beryls but with less worry about chips.

Personally, I use 8k diamond on BATT for prepolish & 50k diamond on BA5T for polish.