Australian Facetors' Guild Limited

It will be interesting to find out how many members are interested.

As far as patterns go, one of the advantages of concave faceting is the opportunity to experiment and create new effects . Perhaps a standard Gemcad design could be used and the facetor could choose which facets to concave. The judging would then be subjective which always brings problems  but it might be one way to get a competition started to test the interest.

John

Often the rules do get in the way with anything new.

Would probably be best to start with an informal demonstration of concave cut stones with informal voting based on aesthetic appeal to see how much interest there is .

Well it seems the owners of concave cutting machines are not interested or don't read this forum . I think the latter is the case.

To gauge interest in a future competition we have to crawl before we can walk.

A possible method would be for a call to concave facetors to exhibit items of their work at a future Muster ( or Gem Shows) to gauge the amount of interest.

If sufficient interest an informal comp. could be a start similar to the Memorial Comp which currently is held at the Muster. I know there have been demos. of concave faceting  at previous  Seminars but this could be another way to bring concave faceting to the fore - perhaps with hands on participation.

John

This forum is a really good place for this discussion on concave faceting, and I need to add my comments to the good posts above.

As I was the one who entered the Standard Brilliant with concave mains into the 2017 Gemboree Comp, you should understand why. I deliberately entered this stone with concave facets to challenge what I (and several others) saw as currently inadequate definitions in the J&R Manual. It is considered traditional that all facets excluding a continuous girdle for a SB are flat. However, the definition in the J&R Manual does not state that. The definition of a facet is a flat or deliberately curved surface.

My entry was to see, first of all, if the competition committee deemed it eligible, under the current definition. After much consultation, the competition committee agreed that it was eligible. 

The follow-on was an immediate change in the definition of a Standard Brilliant, effective immediately, at the J&R meeting held during Gemboree.

This incident has made several of the AFG management committee wonder if we should also be including concave faceting in our competitions. Although it was not my intention to highlight concave faceting in competitions, I welcome this idea too.

It is also my opinion that we should take ‘baby-steps’ by way of a firstly having a display, to test interest from the relatively few members in the AFG who actually do concave cutting. A competition at this stage is still a far way off, in my estimation, but should be our eventual aim.

What is already mentioned in the J&R Manual about curved/concave facets and how they are judged is possibly sufficient and very few minor changes (if any) may be needed.

A further outcome to this discussion will be an upcoming Facet Talk article. Hopefully an article will increase the awareness of this new topic to all Facet Talk readers and let members know about this discussion forum.

Dave Radke

1. improve my skills;
2. encourage others to do likewise; and
3. promote the craft involved in the relevant competition.