Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist – September 2019

S

ynthetic gems provide jew-

elers with plenty of chills

and thrills, because in an

unregulated marketplace,

sometimes only an expert can tell

the diff erence between natural and

not. But get ahold of some low-cost

rough and you can have a lot of fun,

especially if you are a metalsmith,

cabochon maker, or facet cutter.

Good for Practice

My own exploration of manmade

stones began a couple years ago,

when I bought a used faceting

machine and accessories for $20 all

packed into a cardboard box. Inside

small envelopes, I found rough

chunks of CZ and other colorful

synthetics as well as natural stones.

Each was carefully identifi ed in a

faded pencil scrawl. During the sum-

mer heat, I’d cut them into funky

rose cuts, holding them with my wet

fi ngers against spinning diamond

fl at laps.

In 2018, I came across nano gems

off ered by http://www.CoolTools.us in

Wisconsin and blogged about them

at http://www.Interweave.com/category/

article/jewelry. One of their advan-

tages is that they can survive ther-

mal shock and be fi red in metal clay.

Their colors also are remarkably true

to the gems they mimic.

Lured by images of the uncut

nano material, I wanted to buy

some rough and make more funky

facets, but had no luck contacting

the manufacturer overseas. Then

in February 2019, I walked by the

RusGems booth at the Tucson Expo

Center JOGS show and spotted the

word “nano.”

“Oh, you mean ‘nanosistal,’” said

saleswoman Evgeniia Pozdeeva.

“We make that.”

Really Beautiful

But I soon dropped that line of

inquiry when she held up a slab of

lab-grown emerald in front of me.

“We also make this.” In the cases in

front of her were dozens of faceted,

emerald green beauties.

RusGems grows the equivalent of

250,000 carats of these emeralds

a month at its facilities in Bangkok,

Thailand. And sales were brisk at

JOGS, she said, even though the

company was unable to get a credit

card account for the occasion.

The emerald rough is created

through a hydrothermal process,

similar to the way natural gems are

grown in moist cavities deep in the

earth under high heat and pressure.

The big diff erence is, to speed things

up, the hum of electricity is added.

Here is more from the company’s

literature:

“RusGems recreates emeralds

by placing a beryl seed in a sealed,

pressurized container. The container

is fi lled with extremely pure water.

A nutrient containing crushed emer-

alds and other compounds such as

vanadium and chromium is intro-

duced into the hydrothermal envi-

ronment and an electrical charge

is passed through the chamber to

ionize the environment and the unit

is slowly heated in an autoclave.”

Heat is raised to about 1800° F

and pressure to 800 psi. Then a

“molecular transfer” begins.

“Molecules of the nutrient are

stripped away and are attracted to

and reform on the larger and more

solid emerald seed. These crystals

grow at a rate of approximately

Roughing It

in the Lab

Manmade emerald may not offer cheap thrills, but they’re

definitely less expensive! By Betsy Lehndorff

“W

fro

em

25

a m

Th

JO

co

ca

T

thr

definitely less expensive! By Betsy Lehndorff

RusGems standard manmade emerald

86 LAPIDARY JOURNAL JEWELRY ARTIST