An Interview with Lapidarist Jim Buday

I think that a lapidary is someone who works with stones, glass, or some other material to be used for something, not even necessarily jewelry. More of an artist than anything else.

I watched some YouTube videos to learn the basics. When I got my first machine, I didn't even know how to read a diagram. I mostly learned by doing. When I encountered a problem, I would look up a solution. There are forums to answer anything that you could ever run into. That is where I learned most of what I know. The community in general is pretty willing to help people.

I basically just learned by making mistakes for a couple of years. Really, once you learn the basics, it is all practice. Just take your time and be particular about things you want to do well. I think that learning by doing is the best way to do it.

I strictly do flat faceting. There are many ways to do that, but, for me, it is using a machine to place very precise, flat facets at angles and orientations to make designs in stone. 

an intermediary step between flat faceting and carving. You are still using precise angles and a machine that does precise settings, but instead of cutting on a flat disk, you are cutting essentially on a round drum. The facets are actually curved as opposed to flat. They throw light a little differently. They can brighten up duller stones because of the way that they curve into the stone. It has become very popular in the last couple of years.

First and foremost, you need to be good at grading. Sometimes you can put it right on the machine and get going, (but) I look for structural problems first. I make sure that there are no cracks. I'm not a gemologist, but you definitely learn about stones very fast and quickly see if they are going to be a problem. For example, I did have to look up a lot of stuff because heat sensitivity is a big deal. Cleavage planes can be a problem with some stones if you hit them just right. So, you do have to be mindful of that stuff. I have gotten a crash course on a wide range of stones pretty quickly. If I do get something new, I will look it up and ask a colleague who has cut one and ask what issues they ran into.

Sometimes people send me stones to be cut and don't understand the process. They may think that a super-included stone can be cut into something clear and bright. 

I really do like everything. I would say that I really like doing engagement rings for people, which does lean toward the hardier gemstones like sapphire and moissanite. But I enjoy cutting moissanite as much as a piece of glass, really. I like seeing what you can do with it at the end of the project. Moissanites are a pain to cut, but, design-wise, they are a lot easier to cut because you can do a lot with them. You can do a lot with the optics without worrying about them being windowed or turning out poorly. 

Synthetics, in general, are nice because you don't have to worry about how the color is going to turn out for most of them. You know what you are getting. You don't have to worry about inclusions or stuff like that. So that is nice, but it is fun to cut a natural stone that is one of a kind. No one else will have something similar.

We started doing that full time about a year and a half or two years ago. We are working towards doing more of it in-house so that we can (better) control the timeline. Liss, our Coordinator, has since taken on the enormous task of organizing the setting aspect of the business.

Obviously, the lab diamonds are as hard as the object that I am using to cut (them with), so I am expecting it to be a slow and tedious process. The major problem is the cost of diamonds. (Someone) buys the stone, and then we cut the stone smaller. (That means) someone is paying a lot more for a diamond of that size. So the cost is usually prohibitive. I am about to find out if it works and if people like it enough to send me some.

The first thing I found was it took a very long time to make a facet. The biggest issue I had immediately was the diamond heated up very fast, even with a lot of water. This is a big issue with the stone staying on the dop and not moving by melting the wax. The facet was also slightly curved, and I realized this was going to take far longer than I could invest in a single stone, if even possible. I tried prepolishing to see how it would react, and it dented my softer chargeable lap immediately. Sad to say, but diamonds won't be on my list of cutting with my current setup!

Engagement rings are the biggest sellers in terms of keeping the lights on. There is a fair amount of (other) jewelry pieces. Collector pieces are the smallest part of my business. They are few and far between in terms of material that makes a collector's stone. When you do find one, you have to find a specific collector, and (stones) can usually be more expensive.

People come to me either with a specific request, (such as) 'I want this exact stone in this exact setting,' or 'I want something that is pink and bright.' They may want to improve something that they already have. Or they have a general idea, and then we help them find what is best-suited for the situation. And, of course, work within the budget.

Sometimes people come and say 'I want this particular design in this color' and that is it. Usually (that happens) with synthetics because you can do that and not worry (about devaluing the stone). If I have a natural sapphire that I cut into an 8 mm round, but they want a 6 mm round, it doesn't make sense to cut a thousand dollars off a stone. So, it is a little more tricky with natural stones. I usually will cut a couple — I have a lot of rough on hand — and will pick pieces suited to their requests and try to get as close as possible.

That is probably the trickiest part on the artist's side of cutting. If you make your own design, someone can make one very similar, maybe remove a certain number of facets. Is it the same design? Is it their design or your design? There really is no way to determine that. So, things get mixed. A lot of the small cutters try to do their best to credit the original designers if there is something modified. I do that a lot. The Cleopatra's Eye belongs to someone else, but I modified it for the material that I was working with. If it has a name, it is generally a very specific design. Then, you can modify it from there.

There are several sites. A lot of it is free access. You can find it and download it. You may be able to use it as is, but, in most cases, you have to run it through a CAD program to change it for what you are cutting. Sometimes the size or angle is a little different. But there is a lot of free stuff, and there are books of personal designs that people sell. So, there is a lot out there. You don't have to learn to make designs yourself if you don't want to.

You can. Usually, the big companies do that. Honestly, they name cuts that already exist so they are more or less copyrighting or trademarking the name, not the cut itself. There are quite a few people out there who will use a design and not credit an author. Or they will claim that it is their specific design, mostly to get sales and stuff like that. So, there is quite a bit of stuff like that going on. Really, the only thing that most cutters prefer is that it not get commercially used, which still happens, but, as long as the design can stay in a small community and not get mass-produced in the tens of thousands, designs stay pretty much safe.

First, I tried selling on Reddit (but had a hard time being part of other groups). I started my own groupat the suggestion of Lindsey, a critical person in the development of the group. For three or four months, I ran it entirely by myself but quickly got overwhelmed by it. Then (I was luckily joined by) Lindsey, who helped manage the crowd, and we kept expanding from there. We then added Bryan, a computer wizard and sub-member with a decided passion for gems and jewelry, and Liss, a graduate gemologist to produce educational and fun articles.

We wanted to focus on educational stuff, kind of like IGS, envisioning something more community-based than a store. We didn't just want to post a stone for sale and say 'Here you go.' Instead, we wanted people to understand what they were buying and why they were buying it. We wanted to keep it light-hearted and fun (rather) than just a marketplace. We had a few cutters come in who didn't want to do that. So, they went off and started their own thing.

We first added Michelle Mai (Mvmgems). A newer cutter with exceptional personal designs and a specialty in small stones, she has since cut over 2,000 stones and is in the Somewhere In The Rainbow museum. She is our Garnet Queen of the group.

Then we brought in Arya Akhavan, a very prolific designer very involved in the community. He has YouTube videos on how to cut stuff and is one of the people whom I watched. He is big into odd synthetics and is perhaps the most knowledgeable person I have ever met in terms of gemstones and synthetics.

Then, Arya helped introduce us to Lisa Elser (Lisa Elser-Custom Gems), a world-renowned cutter. We soon brought her in. She's in the Smithsonian, Somewhere In The Rainbow, and Alfie Norville. Bringing her in was very exciting for us because she is the person who has 'made it.' She helped immensely with her expertise.

The Sub in general is open to the public. Anyone can view it. Anyone can join. Of course, we maintain people being nice. It's the Internet. There are lots of people who just want to ruin peoples' day. For as many people as we have, it is a very positive community.

We do not let outside vendors sell because we can't verify what they are selling. We have no idea what it is, so we made that choice fairly early on. At first, we tried it, and the one person who was doing it was selling a whole bunch of fake stuff and just didn't care. So, as far as selling goes, it is just the five of us.

I just started doing them. (We) just finished the very first video. I have filmed about five so far and we are still kind of figuring things out at this point. But the first one is over an hour long. Stones take hours to cut, sometimes they take several days, so we are working to consolidate that. I think that I am going to show what I am doing and explain it to kind of teach, but someone would have to know what they were doing to learn anything from the videos.

I just think that it is very interesting to a lot of people that it is a grinding action, not a slicing action. A lot of people ask for leftover pieces, not realizing how the action is done. Diamond is the primary thing embedded in the tools you are using. You are cutting, but in the same way that sandpaper cuts. So, you are grinding down facets. You are not actually slicing anything.

Eventually, it will be geared towards the education of a specific material, like 'Here's what you use. Here's what else you can use.' I'll probably throw in some tricks and tips that I have learned the hard way.

What is considered the best home setup, and this is always debatable, is Ultra Tec. Their machines are really good, and they have customer support now. Those start at about $4,500. To get started with a really good setup, you are anywhere between $6,000-$10,000. 

A lot of people try to go with used machines, but you usually run into so many problems with them. They don't cut accurate stones. You really need a professional grade (machine). Even the old machines sell for thousands of dollars. Especially Ultra Tec, because they can be refurbished and there are still parts available. There are a couple of very bad companies out there that have machines for $1,500-$2,000. But they are not even worth the paper the money is printed on. They are just terrible machines. I did the same thing and realized quickly I was out-cutting the machine. I couldn't repeat things, stuff was moving. And when you are looking at fractions of a millimeter, it is impossible to do that on something that is not accurate.

You basically need a motorized flat disk if you want to do flat faceting. But then, there are multiple ways to adjust the stone when cutting. So, there are hand pieces. There is a jam peg. There is a mast style, which is the most accurate way to do fine precision cutting. Everything will have a motorized flat disk. Mast is a specialized protractor for angles and orientations. It is very accurate. We are talking fractions of a millimeter. You still need to have the hand skills to apply the right amount of pressure and use a loupe to check things. So, you need a very good machine. However, you also need to be good yourself and know what you are doing with polishing and cutting to have a product turn out very well.

You can really see a difference (in a stone where) someone has gone over each facet by hand, as opposed to a machine cut. But you do have the cost for all of the additional time. But it does have its place. We have had no shortage of requests for quite a few years now, so it seems like it is a very strong market if people know that you (the lapidarist) exist.