This trilliant only comes alive in an intimate setting with decent light. Movement is the name of the game to see its flash driven sapphire color. It is eye clean and weighs 1.24 carats.
It would be nice if I never purchased a “problem” piece of rough. But then I guess I would never get to show off, to myself, what I can stretch to do. (I have almost never discussed cutting a stone with another facetor since I don’t know anyone around my home that has this interesting(?) hobby.
I had an Indicolite (varietal name for pure blue tourmaline) that really had a great dark sapphire blue in the c axis direction, while the a/b axis was still a great blue with a somewhat lighter tone level. This is all pretty normal and could lead to a round, since rounds are the thinnest cut for their girth. But this piece had good corners and was well suited for a triangular shaped gemstone. Now I believe that the recommendation for cutting a trilliant is for all the sides of gemstone to be equal in tone/color etc. But this wasn’t possible with the rough and the rough was put aside for sometime. Still it had a great color and a round beckoned. Being stubborn and saying “what the h***” I was going to do it my way. One odd unpleasant gemstone would not end my non-existent career. The preform ended up being cut with the c axis at about 45 degrees to the table, which I have found to produce good mixing results in other tourmaline. The faceting went smoothly and my result was decent. The trilliant (I picked this cut over the shield cut because it is shallower) is dark as it had to be, but I can see an even, regular set of sapphire colored flash in the stone under reasonable light intensities. It weighs 1.24 carats and is a satisfaction that will probably remain unique.
Bruce
