Multicolour and the Devil Duck, or VL Got a New Camera

[VapidLapid]

Right after Christmas I got sic. My doctor was out of town and the one covering him failed to do so. Turned into pneumonia. Air so dry here in winter and I wasn;t running humidifiers. So my doc came back, put me on Levaquin right away. fine. Ten days later I was all better, sort of. I had coughed so hard for so long that I fractured 2 ribs. My doctor doesn't do much to treat that except to say rest up and take this vicodin. Great. Sunday night I was high as a Zeppelin and perusing my Multicolour wish list. Next thing I know I've bought twelve stones. They were shipped Monday and arrived today, Thursday.
I have been kicking this idea for trilion setting around in my mind for a year now so I wanted to get some to experiment with. Eight Phenakite (of which two are cushions) three peridot and a color changing garnet.
I was given a a fancy(?) point and shoot (?) Lumix FZ40 at christmas. For years I have happily used a canon powershot sd950. Since I was photographing the stones I thought I would run a small comparison of the cameras. First thing is that the Lumix is big. The lens is big, fat and sticks out. It lets you get real close (like an inch) but then the lens blocks all the light. I will start with the canon pics; the last two phenakite pics will be lumix.
Picture time!

I will start with the garnet. I had never seen a color changer in person before. So I started small. It is 0.43 carat and was a single stone but on closeout so was around $30. I LOVE it. Sometimes it is purple with red flashes and sometimes red with purple flashes, but it seems always to show both colors. This picture illustrates the color change. No I dont have a matching color change duck, that's why I say it illustrates the change. I faked it by changing my white balance from tungsten to fluorescent. I must say though, that the illustration is a very good representation of the change.




Next up are the peridot. These are 8mm each, calibrated. There were like 90 available and they were listed as eye clean to slightly included. With my 2.5x visor they are still eye clean. and fantastic. great color (that I hope stays that way when I upload the photo), polish, depth...I am really happy with them. They are close to 2 carats each and were about $24. each.

 

[VapidLapid]

These phenakite are 7.2 - 7.4 mm, eye clean. Very white and clear, they look like goshenite.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

I am sorry for your health troubles but at least the stones are nice! I remember a friend who drank a little too much beer one night and had an ebay spree. The results were not pretty.

I have your garnet's oval brother. Also from Multicolour, also around 0.4ct (so a baby garnet) and I also bought it on clearance since I had never seen a colour change garnet personally. It will be set on a ring as soon as I find a little time.

 

[NKOTB]

I am also sorry to hear of your health troubles, glad to hear you're sort of on the mend (what, you didn't buy all of Gene's drop on Sunday?).

I've been curious about Phenakite based on Jean-Noel Soni's postings over on FB, but his asking prices are significantly higher, so I was admiring some of the very stones you bought! What are they like in person?

Barry Bridgestock has a story about meds for tooth pain and being the only one up when his supplier did a 3 a.m. drop...

Cool pictures, as always!

 

[minousbijoux]

I was wondering why you were so quiet for a while there...I'm sorry it was due to pneumonia. I cannot imagine coughing so hard as to crack ribs. My God, Man, let us know so we can hold you in the light, make virtual chicken soup for you and all of that.

I must say I am quite jealous of your color changing duck. I know their rarity requires you to downplay the color change (i can only imagine what a stir it would cause if people only knew; the papparazi field day, the media frenzy - sort of like the 52 lb emerald (or whatever its weight). I'm impressed that despite vicodin and pain, your purchases were sensible. Were it to have been me, I would have bought a few alex's, a coupla emeralds, and maybe a spinel or two and then would wonder my credit card balance was ahem, unusually large.

I just sold my color change sapphire and I remember when I bought it, it being one of the few times I beat others to Barry's drop. You commented at the time that you had your eye on it as well. Well, I love the concept of color change (though over at GO they would say that since blue and purple are next to each other on the color wheel, the sapphire is really a color shifter rather than a color changer). You have yourself a real color changer. I didn't realize that there were so many different colors garnets could change from/to, but it looks like you got one without muddiness in either color.

I also like the peridot trillions. Typically I don't spend any energy on peridot, but those trillions are so lively and look like they have great light return...Well done. And even more important is that you're on the road to recovery.

ETA: I think you'll come up with a system so as to avoid the big luggy camera blocking light, which will be excellent because the photos taken with it look so crystal clear - pun intended.

 

[Enerchi]

Hope you are back in good health Vapid Lapid! That's quite the health set back you experienced... but Vicodin... wow! You and Dr House!

Lovely collection you acquired, while "under the influence"! A trillion spree - pretty cool! They will make interesting pieces in the future - do you have plans for any or all of them?

 

[Starzin]

Luuurve the duck! The garnet isn't bad either and the other pretties seem to be a good pickup. Unfortunately for me I don't like purple gems all that much still that's one less I have to worry about.

It seems you've got a handle on the new camera already and it's good to know you're on the mend.

All in all, well done VL!

 

[pregcurious]

No I dont have a matching color change duck, that's why I say it illustrates the change. I faked it by changing my white balance from tungsten to fluorescent. I must say though, that the illustration is a very good representation of the change.

Very funny.

Sorry to hear of your pneumonia. I also got pneumonia/bronchitis and had a heck of a time breathing for a few weeks. It was very unpleasant. Isn't it nice to be able to sleep again instead of staying up all night and coughing?

Your first Canon phenakite picture looks more blue than the last 2 Lumix pictures. Which picture is more true to color? Do you think that the Lumix captures accurate pictures?

 

[Mike R]

Can't wait to see what setting you come up with for all those trillions, should be very interesting.

I'm glad your feeling better now, I was wondering how the amethyst pendant turned out from before Xmas? I was enjoying seeing the manufacturing process.

 

[VapidLapid]

Thank you all for the good thoughts. My ribs are healing slowly but I cant stand the vicodin; after a few days it messes with your head and takes you to a very dark place.
Mike, I am torn between posting the whole story or waiting until it has an ending. Before I had thought too much about your suggestion of the tube, I had committed to the ring idea, so I banged up and filed a shank, thinking how clever I was to include weights on the underside to balance the ring on the finger, carved a seat for the paraboloid and clamped them together for soldering. And that worked fine, except they shifted and were soldered askew. My attempt to straighten that out with a hammer was crushing. It was after the soldering but before the crushing that it occurred to me that the tube might be attached under the pendant and wrap right up the sides to about the 10 and 2 o'clock positions. Then the chain would support from above so the pendant wouldn't flip, but not sit on top of the pendant like the horns of a steer on a Cadillac. An underwire pendant if you will, for extra support. The 8 hour segment would have integrated well with the form of the pendant. Well there are plenty of stones for another pendant. I am still going to redo the ring, hopefully next week I'll be able to wield a hammer.




It is somewhat beyond humbling that you have taken an interest in my project. Your stuff blows my mind. The process pictures of klewis;s phoenix ring gave me a combination of hope and inspiration and intimidation, but seeing a piece come together from so many individually crafted elements was an education. I watched your video of the making of Kilo while I've been down. A totally wonderful thing. Wish I had a budget for a 2 pound 24kt gold anything! One question I have. The soldering of Kilo. In the video it proceeds slow. I was thinking that to keep the karatage plumb you must be soldering with the same 24k, which would be very tricky. I thought that perhaps if one rolled wire out very thin, and heat the workpiece to close to the melt point, and then the torch would quickly melt the rolled wire into place without liquefying the workpiece, then perhaps coaxing the seam shut with a near melting point soak. Is that what happened or is that one of the techniques you had to research/invent for that project? What a wonderful thing to be able to do and call it work.

As for the new camera, it is nice. The leica lens makes for sharp, contrasty images with nice bokeh. There is a spinning knob under the thumb that actuates both exposure compensation and aperture. The controls are a little confusing, with many preset modes. Im sure it is only a matter of getting used to a different system. Here is another shot with it.

 

[T L]

VL,
Hope you feel better soon. Always love your photos and projects!!

 

[Mike R]

That's a shame that the pieces shifted on you during soldering, I hate it when that happens, but I guess you learned the lesson that it's normally best to reheat the piece up and pull it apart so you can resolder it straight rather than trying to bend it. The squared off shank looked good.

That idea you had for suspending the pendant would look great. I have done something similar before. I bent up a long u shape out of a long narrow strip instead of a tube, on the top outside edges of the u I soldered on some large balls then just under the balls I drilled holes in the strip for the chain to pass through. The pendant was soldered inside the bottom of the u just like you described.

I thought it looked really cool, almost like the pendant was sliding on a flying fox or some type of pulley system.

I'm glad you enjoyed our Kilo video. We did join the pieces by melting it together with pure gold wire, you can see it happening at about 2:30 into the video. The tricky part was his face, we had to do all the joining from behind before we put the back of his head on, because all of the crisp corners would have melted first.

Im working on another ring for a PS'er at the moment that has almost as many pieces as the Phoenix ring, I think there are a couple of progress pictures on here if your interested.

I really enjoy watching all of your work, we don't often get to see pictures of jewellery being handmade these days.

 

[LD]

Sunday night I was high as a Zeppelin and perusing my Multicolour wish list. Next thing I know I've bought twelve stones. They were shipped Monday and arrived today, Thursday.

Do you mind if I borrow your excuse! What a brilliant one - I wonder if my hubby will fall for it if I start coughing a bit????

Sorry to hear you've been under the weather - here's hoping you get back to good health soon. In the meantime though, thanks for sharing your photos. Love the CC garnet - very pretty and (forgetting the cool duck etc) the colours you've shown are very much what I see in real life with some of mine so I can see how accurate they'd be. Great new camera and I can't wait to see more photos!

 

[GemFever]

I want that duckie!

Awesome pics! I love the peridot.

And great job capturing the color change in the stone, whatever method worked. When I tried taking pics of a cc garnet with a DSLR, all the camera wanted to see was the purple, no blue.

 

[JewelFreak]

VL, if you do that well when you're sick, call me next time you're feeling under the weather; I'll put in an order. Nice pics, great stones, love seeing see your ring progress -- most of all, glad you're on the mend. See, if we still lived down the street, I could've brought you a hot toddy -- they cure everything: illness, bankruptcy, broken hearts, flat tires....

--- Laurie

 

[VapidLapid]

NKOTB, I am not sure yet nut I think I am disappointed in phenakite. Not the particular stones I got, but the mineral species itself. Having seen the fantastic photos of rough on oneworldgemstone my expectations might have been unfair. It is certainly bright. Obviously it looks kinda like quartz, hence the name. I think it would be good for side stones and halos or garlands in necklaces where it would cost thousands to get diamonds. But the crystal forms in the OWG pics were so intricate and fascinating that the cut stones, with no dispersion, were, um, dull.

Pregcurio, I havent used the lumix enough to be sure about it, Right now I am finding some weird variances in the color renditions. At the extremes of ISO it seems really off, but there ais more Im not ready to get into yet. I dont have a memory card for it yet so Ive been limited to the 7 pics the built in memory holds at a time. the blue in the first phenakite pic (canon) is definately off; the devil duck is purple.

 

[NKOTB]

Thanks for your thoughts on it, as we seem to often have similar taste (btw, now that I know of your health issues, I doubly appreciate your input on my MC red-orange spinel, which is tucked away safely in my collection box ). I have also seen those magnificent photos of phenakite on OWG, etc. and was tempted, though held off because of the colourless factor. I thought maybe if it was sparkly/bright/wow enough, it might justify the stray, but if you're questioning it at the MC prices, then I'm unlikely to jump on it at a higher cost (despite Jean-Noel Soni's great-looking cutting).