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Kanchanaburi Pictures - Page 2 |
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 |  |  | |   | |  | | The black stones on the belt are black spinels or nin as they are known locally. Some pieces are picked out but only the perfectly formed octahedral crystals. | | | | | | |  | | A recovered sapphire crystal. | | | | | | |  | | Examining a 2.5 kg parcel of rough sapphires. | | | | | | |  | | Yellow sapphire crystals showing blue colour zoning. | | | | | | |  | | The first stage of the cutting process is to remove any cracks or undesirable colour. A course grinding wheel is used for this purpose. | | | | | | |  | | The sapphires are then fixed to dop sticks and pre-formed into shapes and calibrated sizes using a gauge. | | | | | | |  | | Sanding cabochon sapphires - two at a time. | | | | | | |  | | Cabochon sapphires on their dop sticks waiting for the final polish. | | | | | | |  | | The final polish. Several stones are polished at once by rolling the dop sticks between hands. | | | | | | |  | | Polished sapphire cabochons. | | | | | | |  | | | | |  | |  | |
