The Opposed Bar aka The Pixel Cut: The Most Viral American Gem Design? (with Jordan Wilkins)
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- čas přidán 11. 03. 2021
- In this video, we are looking at one of the most well known American gemstone designs and the one with the most names: the opposed bar, the Smithsonian bar, the pixel cut, the lens cut, the bar cut, the smith bar, the Minecraft cut, the creeper... the list goes on an on.
Jordan Wilkins (@jordandesigns3) joins me to help tell the story of this cut whose roots goes all the way back to the 1940's and is still popular today.
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I knew Gus Mollin. He and Ed McBride (a goldsmith) had a shop on Piedmont Ave in Oakland.
Gus cut the stones, and Ed set them in original creations. Gus was also a machinist, and made a beautiful faceting machine called the 'Taylor'. It was made of all bronze and brass. I bought one in 1970 for I think $350 which was about two month's rent for my apartment at the time. Sperisen shows a photo of the Taylor in his book. I cut some damn nice stones with that machine. I liked a lot of things about it that were better than my UltraTek. Unfortunately I sold it 30 years later.
When he mentioned Gus I wondered if anyone knew his story. Thanks for sharing this! Isn’t it odd to think you might be mentioned/remembered years from now on some holographic version of CZcams?
It's funny how the simplest things can be so alluring. Fantastic presentation by the way! 👌
Agreed! Thanks
Impressive history of the pixel cut. Your research is much appreciated
Great research, great video. Thanks Justin for that.
Glad you liked it Steve. I like getting behind these mysterious and innovative cuts!
Yesterday I was thinking of an Video From you about the Smithsonian Bar! Here we go! Thx
You must be reading my mind. Can you tell me which one I’ll do next? I haven’t decided 🤣
Maybe a shortstorry about Amentrine or Aquamarin. It would be kind if you were starting a series about the History of Stones and how they were discovert.
Thanks for sharing I really love this video showing the behind the scenes of gem desing!
Thank for watching. I enjoy the behind the scenes as well
Cool show.
Those generated gems are awesome.
The video is a result of hard work
This is beautiful, thank you very well put together.
Great video! I've faceted the pixel/opposed bar cut several times and it's definitely one of my favorite go-to designs!
It's interesting to see how the design has changed and developed over time.
I agree. Sometimes I go into the research with no clue and I end up finding out so much. A lot of the connections in this story really surprised me.
So now we need the Prim cut
Working on it!
Thank you for providing text bits with proper spellings of names, etc. Had been going to ask
I do what I can. Thanks for watching
nice video education thanks Justin , maybe this design is not so difficult for beginner
Yes I agree. Beginner friendly!
Great work on this video. I really enjoyed hearing Jordan share his story.
Thanks , I had fun discovering all this stuff and especially hearing Jordan’s story. I didn’t know it had become such a big deal.
An excellent look at a popular stone.
I think the Opposed Bar was probably my 10th stone as well. I did a couple tricky "checkered" cuts shortly thereafter, but the Opposed Bar was the lead-up to those.
The Opposed Bar and Smithsonian Bar etc is an excellent cut especially for Low R.I. gems as it provides a sparkle that is difficult to obtain without a Brilliant-type cut (IMO).
I definitely agree!
Enjoyed the story thank you
Very informative video Justin, well done! I am currently cutting the "opposed bar 2" and working on a video for my channel. Cool history behind this cut, one of my personal favourites
great video
Thanks!
Aloha Justin! Great video- now I got to try to cut one 👍🏼
They’re not too hard and fun too!
Awesome video. Thanks for the background on this cut.
Glad you enjoyed it. I learned a lot I didn’t know in the process of making the video
that was utterly fascinating - thank you Justin
Thanks for watching
Sad that there’s no more Lapidary Journal. I love some of these crazy, fancy cuts. Is this lens cut very tricky? I’m in San Francisco and today, I don’t see any of these bar or lens cut stones selling around here.
No its pretty easy. Just a bunch of parallel rectangles. Give it a try and show us how you do!
Amazing cut
Fantastic video!
That is really appealing in many variations. 🤩🤩🥳
Great work
The 'censored' cut.
Great video I want one.
Hi Justin. What machine did you cut your sample’s on?.themast or the handpiece machine .😎🐈⬛🇦🇺
I think it was on the Handpiece
Sir, please tell me on what grid you do your preform?
is it possible to cut opal with this kind of cut
I don’t think it would do much unless the Opal is very transparent.
Just for my own interest, and maybe more people, how big is your faceting books library? How many books do you have?
Just faceting related is about 100 books plus a large collection of periodicals. If I include Gems and jewelry books it’s much bigger maybe another 100 or 200 books. I love books. 😁
@@JustinKPrim omg it is crazy 🤣🤩 could you make one day a review of your library? For example the one you prefer, the ones needed for beginners, for advanced. For how love history and so on? I guess lots of people would love to know more 🙏🏻✨❤️ at least I would 😉💎✨
Hi Justin, where abouts are you in Bangkok? I have a few good stones which I would like to discuss with you for custom cutting. Thanks
Hello we moved to France last summer so we’re no longer in bangkok. Sorry.
@@JustinKPrim Thanks very much for your prompt reply, is there anyone else in Bangkok you would recommend for beautiful cutting like yours.
@@wqkhn593 we have a cutting factory that we are partnered with for this. Please email me. justinkprim at gmail dot com
How I can join to your class?
email me. Justin k prim at gmail dot com