A clip of my wife holding a yellow Cubic Zirconia I faceted in Jeff R. Graham’s “Smith Bar” opposing bar-cut design showing the pixelating effects the facets play on light, as well as the colorful flashes that CZ is known for…
The “Opposed Bar” design that Jeff R. Graham came up with was also named “Smith Bar” as one of the gems he cut in that design found its way into the Smithsonian Institution. According to an article on the International Gem Society’s web site, Mr. Graham cut the design in a forest-green tourmaline that was “tension mounted in a white gold bracelet by third generation artisan Sam Patania.”
“A curator from the Smithsonian Institution saw the piece at the show and spoke with Mr. Patania about submitting it (and two other pieces by his father and grandfather) to the museum. It’s now on display at the Renwick Gallery.”
Because the gem has a home in the Smithsonian, it has also acquired a name known as the “Smith Bar” cut, but has also lately become known as the “Pixel Cut” by some due to the way the opposed bar cuts creates a series of square reflections similar to the pixels used in modern digital displays.
I have a really cool piece of Ametrine (a bi-color quartz with half of the stone violet-purple and the other half golden-yellow out of the Anahi mine in Bolivia) that I had purchased from TheRoughStuff on Etsy that I want to cut in this design of about the same size, and wanted to work through a practice cut with the design first, but am really stoked at how this one turned out.
I’m actually glad I did cut the design in CZ first, though, as I think the “C2” corner cut angles on the crown really need to be altered based on the length/width of the stone, so I plan to import the design in Gem Cut Studio (a great software application for working with and designing facet diagrams/instructions) and use the length/width of the Ametrine girdle so I can have them meet at the “C3/C4” meet as the original design shows, instead of halfway into the “C4” facet as it turned out on this stone.
Cut on an ULTRA TEC VL Classic using preformed Cubic Zirconia rough I had previously worked of about the same size as the Ametrine I’ll be cutting at a later date. The CZ (which is much heavier than quartz) started out at 36.95 carats, and finished up at 11.50 carats (11.8 x 9.2 mm).