Cehrabehra
Super_Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2006
- Messages
- 11,071
A few things... first of all I am not going to sign over the soul of my diamond to someone else''s discretion. That should just be a given. Ultimately the choices would have to be mine and mine alone without risk of being ostracized.
I also cannot guarantee that there even IS a better cut that stays in the old mine arena. Obviously somewhere deep inside is an ideal H&A that could be carved out but that is not my goal.
The way I see this proposition is a "put your time where your mouth is, Sara". I have long cried for there to be a known standard for cushion cuts and to me this would be an opportunity to help all of the *real* cut experts out there by crunching a bunch of numbers and angles that they just simply do not have time for and I would be more than happy to do and it benefiting my own stone would be icing on the cake. Hopefully the information I got would be helpful in the big scheme as well.
They pretty much have rounds covered - with some squabbles over bits and pieces here and there.
Princesses have a standard - even if how to deal with the different quantities of chevrons is still an ongoing debate.
The square H&A has come a long way even in the last 3 years - essentially a cushion but truly demanding a squared shape.
ALSO:
A round has 8 mains that can all be the same length as - well it is a circle.
A square H&A gets around this by having the mains avoid the corners so that they are still all equidistant from the center.
The jubilee had the whole 12/3/6/9 thing going but they got around it by clipping the corners into a bit of an octagonal shape.
Ovals have gotten around "bow tie" by putting the junction at 3/9 o''clock instead of having the mains there as was the old tradition and many cushion types have used this as well.
When you get into the omc style cushions (whether they be true omc or not) you have corner mains that have different needs than side mains. And if you get into a long cushion you actually have 3 lengths of main to deal with. The four corners being one length, the ends being a second length, and the short sides being a third. And somehow you have to get ALL of those lengths to work in harmony. not an easy task! I totally get why this cut is so far down on the list of importance.
I also know that when you have a well cut cushion it does magical things and people want to replicate that magic and no one wants to spend the countless hours on the research when there are more profitable and tangible results to be had with easier cuts - not to mention actually providing the $rough$ and like someone here said, cut the soul right out of it looking for perfection.
I started this thread not to be talked into a recut or to be talked out of one - but to chew on it with people I trust who know about this stuff. I am open to a recut but I am not married to it.
The cutter I approached is Brian. Now my thinking was that I essentially have about 20 months before I want it done as that is when my anniversary is and I could let him hold the stone and mull over the stone in the back of his head for a good long period of time because I know there is no easy answer on what is best to do. I trust Brian - I trust his skill and I trust his integrity but I don''t know that he has an easy or ready answer for this somewhat complicated situation. My pavilion is shallow and the crown is heavy, it is elongated and wonky. The ends have a totally different personality than the middle and I want to keep the architectural charm of an older style cut stone. I cannot expect him to spend hours and hours and hours on my one stone figuring out what would work best so it is very tempting to help do the legwork and see if anything at all would be an obvious improvement or the whole thing is an academic waste of time.
So that''s where I am - I have not made a decision either way and would like to think about it. The other wrench in the mix is that I just moved back from Europe and am moving to china in 4 mos and I don''t have a lot of time between now and then but after I move I imagine I will have quite a bit of time on my hands and that''s a dilemma for me as this proposition is very flattering. I also don''t know if I have what it takes to be anything more than an embarrassment to myself and I''d hate to let anyone else down along the way. And most of all I don''t want to change my stone at any cost.
Okay that was longer than I thought it would be but I got most of my thoughts out...
I also cannot guarantee that there even IS a better cut that stays in the old mine arena. Obviously somewhere deep inside is an ideal H&A that could be carved out but that is not my goal.
The way I see this proposition is a "put your time where your mouth is, Sara". I have long cried for there to be a known standard for cushion cuts and to me this would be an opportunity to help all of the *real* cut experts out there by crunching a bunch of numbers and angles that they just simply do not have time for and I would be more than happy to do and it benefiting my own stone would be icing on the cake. Hopefully the information I got would be helpful in the big scheme as well.
They pretty much have rounds covered - with some squabbles over bits and pieces here and there.
Princesses have a standard - even if how to deal with the different quantities of chevrons is still an ongoing debate.
The square H&A has come a long way even in the last 3 years - essentially a cushion but truly demanding a squared shape.
ALSO:
A round has 8 mains that can all be the same length as - well it is a circle.
A square H&A gets around this by having the mains avoid the corners so that they are still all equidistant from the center.
The jubilee had the whole 12/3/6/9 thing going but they got around it by clipping the corners into a bit of an octagonal shape.
Ovals have gotten around "bow tie" by putting the junction at 3/9 o''clock instead of having the mains there as was the old tradition and many cushion types have used this as well.
When you get into the omc style cushions (whether they be true omc or not) you have corner mains that have different needs than side mains. And if you get into a long cushion you actually have 3 lengths of main to deal with. The four corners being one length, the ends being a second length, and the short sides being a third. And somehow you have to get ALL of those lengths to work in harmony. not an easy task! I totally get why this cut is so far down on the list of importance.
I also know that when you have a well cut cushion it does magical things and people want to replicate that magic and no one wants to spend the countless hours on the research when there are more profitable and tangible results to be had with easier cuts - not to mention actually providing the $rough$ and like someone here said, cut the soul right out of it looking for perfection.
I started this thread not to be talked into a recut or to be talked out of one - but to chew on it with people I trust who know about this stuff. I am open to a recut but I am not married to it.
The cutter I approached is Brian. Now my thinking was that I essentially have about 20 months before I want it done as that is when my anniversary is and I could let him hold the stone and mull over the stone in the back of his head for a good long period of time because I know there is no easy answer on what is best to do. I trust Brian - I trust his skill and I trust his integrity but I don''t know that he has an easy or ready answer for this somewhat complicated situation. My pavilion is shallow and the crown is heavy, it is elongated and wonky. The ends have a totally different personality than the middle and I want to keep the architectural charm of an older style cut stone. I cannot expect him to spend hours and hours and hours on my one stone figuring out what would work best so it is very tempting to help do the legwork and see if anything at all would be an obvious improvement or the whole thing is an academic waste of time.
So that''s where I am - I have not made a decision either way and would like to think about it. The other wrench in the mix is that I just moved back from Europe and am moving to china in 4 mos and I don''t have a lot of time between now and then but after I move I imagine I will have quite a bit of time on my hands and that''s a dilemma for me as this proposition is very flattering. I also don''t know if I have what it takes to be anything more than an embarrassment to myself and I''d hate to let anyone else down along the way. And most of all I don''t want to change my stone at any cost.
Okay that was longer than I thought it would be but I got most of my thoughts out...
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