A New to Me Machine and a Garnet

Every gem cutter knows the anticipation of waiting for a client's green light. Instead of sitting on my hands, I decided to break in my "new-to-me" Ultra Tec V5 faceting machine with a piece of bright red garnet from my personal stock. From digital blueprints to a fiery final polish, here is what I learned from my first test run—and a stark reminder of why you can never truly outsmart an internal crack.