Penalty Box Cut

by Megan Kossow
Beginner-to-intermediate project

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	• Red corundum (shown) (Quartz P5 = 41°) • Angles for R.I. = 1.76 • 65 facets + 8 facets on girdle = 73 • 4-fold, mirror-image symmetry • 96 index • L/W = 1.000 • T/W = 0.384 • T/L = 0.384 • P/W = 0.387 • C/W = 0.146 • H/W = (P+C)/ (W+0.02) = 0.553 • P/H = 0.700 • C/H = 0.263 • Vol./W3 = 0.147 Abbreviations C = crown; L = length; H = height; P = pavilion; T = table; W = width
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Because when I play hockey I visit that part of the rink more often than I would like (I don’t recommend calling it home), I wanted to create a pendant to help ward off any evil “penalty box” spirits, and this is the design I came up with for the stone. I’m a student and don’t get a lot of time for faceting, but my uncle, Jerry Capps, is a facetor and he helped me complete the design (I was even able to get him to cut the stone for me). He also recommended that I try GemCad to help execute my design idea, and I did. [See “Virtual Faceting,” January, 2002, by Jerry Capps for more on GemCad.]

The Penalty Box is the result of my first effort using GemCad. There is no guarantee of any magic from this cut, but using red, orange, lavender, or any light-colored corundum produces a dazzler, both face up and tilted as shown mounted in the pendant. With 65 facets, the cut requires a little more faceting effort than the standard round brilliant.

Sequenced visual aids are included for a better understanding of progressive cutting at periodic intervals. I hope you enjoy this design as much as I enjoyed getting introduced to GemCad.

Project instructions coming soon.