Gem Cutting Specialists - Denver GemCutting Co.

The Quartz flower carving was mounted in the Diamond and Ruby pin that you see in the left side of the picture. The customer broke the Quartz carving and needed a new one cut just like the old one to fit the pin.

This is a pair of earrings with matching red rubellite cabs mounted in the center of each. The bezels with the cabs are inset into quartz which has been carved and left with a frosted surface. This was simply a matter of duplicating the original.

This is a Cartier 18kt gold gentleman’s dress pocket watch which was made in Paris, circa 1920. The case which housed the movement was made from a solid piece of rock crystal quartz which had been faceted and machined to accept the movement. The jeweler who was having the repair work done learned that only a very small number of these watches had been made in the Cartier shop. He was told that the quartz case may have been made using specially designed tools for the project which are no longer available. Photo #3 shows an inset rim or groove into which a slip ring was inserted. This concave groove needed to be perfectly round and of exact tolerances and contour for the slip ring to fit. The movement was then to be dropped into place within and on top of the slip ring. The slip ring had 6 places to accept screws. The movement was then screwed to the slip ring which held the movement in place. The rock crystal also needed 3 drill holes from the outer edge to the inner edge. One for the stem to pass through and two for the brackets of the bail over the stem.

The outer dimensions of the watch case measures 1 ľ" x 1 ľ". The thickness of the quartz is 4.0 mm and the thinnest part in the center is .9 mm.

The back of the watch case acts as a quartz window through which the inner mechanical workings of the movement can be viewed. I wish I had a picture of that, it was impressive.

Photo 1) This photo shows the original broken watch case.

Photo 2) This photo shows how the watch case needed to be contoured to accept the slip ring to which the movement was attached.

Photo 3) This photo shows the watch with the movement in place and the faceted surfaces of the rock crystal showing around the outside edges of the pocket watch.

The watch was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1992.

This is a clock that was made by Cartier in the 1920s. It has a clear Quartz handle on top. The Quartz handle was broken and needed to be duplicated. As you can see it is in the shape of a “D” which is also cylindrical in cross section. Making the outer shape isn’t very difficult but it can be quite time consuming to shape, sand, and then polish the inner area of a piece like this. After it has been cut, a ˝” wide slot was cut out of the bottom where it attaches to the body of the clock.

This is a platinum brooch/pendant with over 8 carats of diamonds. It also has a Ruby eye, small Emeralds, a few black Onyx and many buff top Aquamarines. The background of the pieces is made from carved and frosted Quartz. Although it is difficult to see it in the picture, the entire piece of Quartz is dished or curved in overall shape. The thickness of the Quartz carving was 1mm (the thickness of a dime) over the entire length of the piece. Polished grooves formed the cloud shapes.

A jeweler was approached by a local university history professor. The professor had a photo of an ancient Roman coin and wanted to know if the image could be carved into a black and white Onyx cameo. Material of this nature is very difficult to come by. I scoured the Tucson gem show that year and found a slightly larger cameo with the head of a woman carved into it. I saw that it could be “re-carved” into the cameo that the jeweler needed. I was able to do most of it with my tools but for the finer details I used the tools of a friend who is a dentist. He had once offered me to use his tools if needed. I took him up on his offer and was able to finish the piece with the detail that was required.

This is piece of oriental artwork, probably made in China. The age of the piece is unknown. The 3 men in the picture are made of carved soapstone, bone and jasper. When the piece was brought to me it was missing a couple of small pieces, a couple of pieces needed repair and most of the pieces needed to be re-glued. This required carefully removing all of the pieces which the glue was no longer sufficiently holding. Then removing all of the old glue and re-gluing them into their proper places along with the new pieces which I had cut to match. The pieces had been held in place with a colored glue since the stone parts did not fit with close tolerances. I needed to match the color of the new glue to match the color of the original glue that had been used.

Non-Jewelry Projects

The owner of a local guitar shop wanted to fit a special banjo with some very special parts. He brought me a wooden banjo bridge and asked if it could be replicated in Black Jade. Sure, why not? As you can see, the Black Jade copy is not exactly the same. Cutting the angular steps into the Black Jade would have been problematic and really not necessary anyway. He decided to use a curved shape that would place the notches for the strings in the same places and make a more attractive piece. The various photos show the piece from different vantage points. I kind of hated to part with this one when I was done, but then, I don’t own a banjo.