This is me almost every morning around 5am… 😭
This is me almost every morning around 5am… 😭
Me!
Under hobbies, I run a community on gemstone faceting that I’m trying to get some traction on, can you add this to your list?
“Army of Darkness” a movie I still pick up and watch once a year.
Just checked lostsouls by hitting port 23, 22 players online… a bit sad… I remember when there were at least 100-200 online at once.
LP was the initials of the developer. What was cool about LP muds was the ability to code new areas/weapons/etc directly in the game. You, as a wizard, could create a new area and load the objects and interact with them immediately.
More info on this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LPMud
Looks maybe like a pheasant?
At first I thought that was someone posting on lemmy… freaked me out, and I started looking for how to ban the content. 😂😂
1000%!
I actually created a community for a hobby of mine, and have been trying to post and comment more.
My mom was a geologist and she tried her hand at it, and that peaked my interest. I learned from a Japanese woman in Maryland who cut for custom jewelry stores in the D.C. area. I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands, so it really was a great fit for me.
It is an expensive hobby. A setup like mine in a post here costs around $7k not including rough. Rough can range from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars or more for a single piece depending on the material, size, color and clarity. I’ve sold some of what I cut, taken on commissions at times but never enough to cover my costs. For me it’s about the creation and giving stones as gifts to friends and family, that’s payment enough. There are plenty of cutters I know that make a living doing this, so it’s totally possible to be profitable. As an example, I cut a $20 dollar rough London blue topaz (6 hours) and sold it for $250.
One question I do get asked is how long does a stone take to cut? It varies based on size (larger == longer), cut difficulty and the material itself. The amethyst in this post took about five hours or so over the course of four days. As much as it looks like it’s a difficult cut, it’s actually relatively easy.
That was weird… I posted that on a story about TikTok … and it got out on the I35 one?!?
The deleted comment was meant for a different story… no idea why it got attached here.
I think in this day and age, the question is really who do you believe? I’m sure there may be reputable people who post, but given the Chinese involvement I have a healthy dose of skepticism for anything “news” on TikTok. Entertainment sure, lots of good content there,
It depends on the material and size. For example, that’s just a piece of quartz but fairly large. For this cut you would want a medium to large sized stone, something like at least 8mm in diameter. A good piece of Topaz might run anywhere from $100-$450 depending on color and size.
I’ve cut this particular cut in Topaz and Quartz (above). I tried it in CZ to see what it might look like if it were cut in diamond, but the pattern is totally washed out by the light return, so likely higher RI will likely not work as well as a more color saturated stone.
I learned while in high school a long time ago from a Japanese woman who did this for a living in Maryland for many of the high-end custom Jewelry stores in the D.C. area. I’ve continued to cut off an on since.
That being said look around for lapidary clubs that might exist in your area. Here in the US there are local clubs that have classes and such. I’ve also seen people learn by self teaching and asking for advice online. Generally performing basic cutting isn’t really that hard, it’s a test of patience and a steady hand. Most of the simple designs can be found online.
The hard part about getting into this as a hobby is the upfront expense. For a good setup like what I have, it can cost you $6-$7k not including the rough. You might be able to find a used machine, but you need to be careful with those or cheap ones where they either have damage or are not precise enough. This can lead to frustration as the stone never turns out quite right.
Bottom line, see if you can find a cutter nearby or a lapidary club. Take the hobby for a test run and see if it satisfies that itch before investing in the equipment.
For me the satisfaction is more than worth it, along with being able to give gifts to family and friends.
The design was based on originally trying to achieve a swirling affect, but I ended up with this when I was designing it in gem cad studio. I loved the render and decided to try the cut.
For those that don’t know how gems are cut, there are a couple of different style machines, I use what’s called a mast style from Ultratec. A stone is cut based on index(position around the circumference) and angle and is cut by grinding the stone down on different grit laps. For this stone I used a 260, 1200, 3000 and finally 60,000 diamond.
Overall this stone took about 5 hours to cut.
Wait. Is twitter still a thing? 😉
This is what I do… find a comfortable position, then start relaxing all of your muscles.
Start with your toes … given them a wiggle and relax them. Slowly move up your body into your torso… then down your arms, and finally your neck and head.
I’m usually out before I get to my arms.