Step-by-Step Help: How to Cut Gemstones With a Dremel?

Gemstones enchant with their beauty and sophistication, and many people love to wear them as jewelry or decorate their home, adding them to various household items, or just store to admire them from time to time. However, in addition to enjoying the beautiful geometry and brilliant appearance, you can do a much more interesting thing, namely to make and process gemstones.

Processing of gemstones can be attributed to natural science and jewelry hobbies because if you are fond of carving gemstones you can be called a real jeweler. Because this work is laborious and requires close attention to detail. You don’t need to have a lot of experience and knowledge behind you to start cutting gemstones, you just need to have the necessary tools and ideas.

What Tools Do You Need?

If you are already familiar with the basic tools and the principle of gemstones processing, you have probably heard of the device for processing gemstones – Dremel. This is a device that will make the usual cutting process much faster and more convenient because it is designed specifically for fine and elegant work. One of the best options for this type of work is Dremel 4300 or Dremel 8220.

If you want to choose bits for drill bits, pay attention to Diamond points or Diamond wheel points.  In addition to processing devices, we need to choose the necessary gemstone to be processed.  When choosing, you need to pay attention to the type of gemstone, because it will depend on the details of the cutting process.

Dremel is able to handle both hard gemstones and uncut gemstones and gems with a particular cleavage.  Now that we have everything you need for processing the gemstone, we suggest you go through a quick guide on how to cut gemstones with the Dremel tool.

Step 1. Prepare your Dremel Tool

To start, you need to have diamond bits ready and insert them into the Dremel tool you have. Bear in mind to have the Dremel tool to be switched off, before you start working with inserting. The Dremel has an end hole in which you should insert the diamond bit. Push the diamond bit back slightly, then tighten the collet nut, and you will have it secured.

Step 2. Prepare the gems

Before working with a gemstone, come up with an idea of what the final shape of the gemstone will look like.  Choose the shape you want the gemstone to have, and prepare it so that it roughly matches the future shape.

If you work with gemstones, you must remember that a certain type of stone may have inclusions (hardnesses, colored spot, cleavage). You need to remove them from the beginning so that they do not interfere with the process.  Start preparing the basic shape of the gemstone by grinding it.

Take a 260 grit diamond cutting lap and turn it at the highest speed.  At this stage, you will not have a perfect shape. Then the gemstone needs to be cooled with water.  After cooling, prepare dop sticks and wax, with which you can cut evenly.  So you will do the gemstone.

To connect the dop stick, wax, and the gem itself at maximum, it should be heated. But be careful and don’t leave the gem in the process of doping for a long time, to avoid cracking and damaging.  After the total bonding of the gemstone, dop stick and wax, you should prepare a diamond cutting lap and place a gemstone there.

Step 3. Stage of Cutting a Gemstone

Once you’ve achieved the shape you wanted, it’s time to cut the gemstone. It’s time to use Dremel – turn it on and get it ready.  To process a gemstone, it must be prefixed with clamps. After all, holding a gemstone in your hand is dangerous and inconvenient.

To avoid damaging the stone and its attachment, turn on the device at a moderate speed. Incisions should be made at an angle of 45 degrees. Make incisions straight and neat. To achieve a smooth surface, accelerate from the lowest speed.

If you feel that the gemstone is hard to cut, you can make several passes. To make straight walls in gemstone, make straight cuts. After that, start cutting the main faces of the crown. To do this, change the angle and get rid of the main faces.

The edges may not be perfect when trimming, but you can fix this during Step 4. Next, prepare for Step 4. For polishing, we no longer need diamond bits, so after turning off Dremel it needs to be removed. You need to change the bits while holding down the shaft lock button.

Step 4. The Final Step, Which is To Grind the Gemstone

When performing the polishing function, the Dremel must be attached at the lowest grain. After switching on the device, grind all the surface of a gemstone, by means of a grinding tip. In order for the edges to acquire equal angles, the rough crashes must be evenly sanded.  In the process, switch the grit from the lowest to 800.

To evenly and smoothly grind the surface, use finer bits. Before sanding the girdle, polish the facets with a piece of any fabric. Now, we move on to the last stage, where we polish the girdle and cut the pavilion. When cutting the pavilion, be careful not to damage the shape of the faces.

For polishing the girdle use an 8k diamond powder paste. By polishing the girdle at the 4-the steps, we save time and waste less energy. Once we have finished the final step, you can complete the end result by polishing the gem with a soft cloth.

As you can see, the  processing of gemstones with the Dremel tool is easy and comfortable, so choose only the best tools to create the perfect gemstones.