How it becomes an eye catching sparkle

This time I visited the lapidary in Sri Lanka I remembered to take some photographs. In fact, I took a video tape but it appears to be corrupted. I will try to have this fixed.  So, here is how a rough crystal is turned in to a beautiful sparkly gemstone.

Step 1 - Preforming the gemstone crystal - At this step cutter decides what shape the gemstone will be cut. Pictured is a cutter preforming a natural garnet. He is holding the stone by hand against the wheel. The wheel is spinning in water to avoid heat build up. You can also see some garnet crystals on the table.

Step 2 - Faceting a preformed gem - Once the stone has been preformed to its shape, cutter then facet the gemstone. In above picture, a cutter is faceting a natural sapphire. Fine diamond dust has been rubbed on the spinning plate. Water drips on to the plate to avoid heat build up.

Step 3 - Polishing the faceted gemstone - Last but not least the faceted gemstone is polished to obtain the beautiful lustre. Pictured is a cutter polishing a pink sapphire. Sapphires are polished on a copper plate with extremely fine diamond dust.

And.....here comes the beautifully faceted gemstone!

I hope you find this process is as fascinating as I think it is.