[Railroader]

Originally Posted by residentEvil 

i know. relax relax. just giving you crap.

and i thought i ended this thread posts ago.

simply, don't do it!!! solves all sorts of problems

Hence the "touche' "

Quick joke: Why do divorces cost so much?



































Because they are worth it.

[residentEvil]

"take my wife, please" - was that benny hill?

[andi*pandi]

henny youngman.

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by residentEvil 

"take my wife, please" - was that Henny Youngman?

Yes, it was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Youngman

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

I see nothing has changed after my "vacation".

Yay! RR is back!

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Yay! RR is back!

Thank you sir!

[Mastrap]

So is Cash. Let the games begin.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

So is Cash. Let the games begin.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but I made a promise not to respond to his posts.

[centerchannel68]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Sorry to rain on your parade, but I made a promise not to respond to his posts.

...

"I see nothing has changed after my "vacation""

Yeah, that wasn't responding to me at all.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Sorry to rain on your parade, but I made a promise not to respond to his posts.

Glad to hear it. Judging from your post in tooki's thread nothing much has changed during your absence.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by centerchannel68 

...

"I see nothing has changed after my "vacation""

Yeah, that wasn't responding to me at all.

Just.... don't.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

Glad to hear it. Judging from your post in tooki's thread nothing much has changed during your absence.

I simply thought tooki was one of the worst mods. He changed rules and arbitrarily made rules up. He didn't enforce rules he made. I won't miss him.

It looks like a few new mods have been added in my absence and they aren't doing too bad. It's nice to see Lat back and posting more often.

[centerchannel68]

Mmmm. Chocolate.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by centerchannel68 

Originally Posted by shifuimam

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:Z6ZsmmMdU4I4oM:http://i4.ebayimg.com/04/i/06/de/31/cf_2.JPG

Whatever.

You're seriously making up fake quotes for me now?

How old ARE you?

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

I see nothing has changed after my "vacation".

To the OP: Those rings you link to on eBay seem quite over priced. I am sure you could find something locally if you checked out some of the smaller independent jewelers in your area. And consider the custom route again. It's what we did and we couldn't be happier. We also saved a lot of money and got exactly what we wanted.

Our story: I am a traditionalist. I bought the engagement ring and allowed her to design the wedding band. I went with a simple solitaire in a very simple mount. That allowed her to do what she wanted with the wedding band.

I went to a local small shop jeweler that I had a a small reputation with and discussed with him possible rings and stones. I went on a weekday morning and we got to know each other quite well. We discussed what I wanted to spend and what she might like. What we ended up doing is he had me come back about a week later and he said he'd have a number of diamonds to choose from. When I came back he had about 20 diamonds ranging from huge and yellow to tiny and amazingly bright and clear. I ended up selecting a .80 carat stone that is very white but has a couple inclusions. I had it mounted on a simple ring.

<img>

After I proposed and gave my wife the ring we went back and she designed the wedding band/wrap.

<img>

Because of the respect I showed the jeweler and us becoming pretty good friends he gave us an amazing deal on the wrap. All in all I spent a little over $2200 back in 1996. I had it appraised at another jewelry shop and they quoted me a price of $3200. We just had it appraised again for insurance purposes and it is worth a little over $5500 (so much for jewelry being a horrendous investment).

I also buy 100% of all my jewelry from the same guy and he gives me some amazing prices. Usually around 40%+ off. I have probably spent a little over $10k at his shop in the last 10 years.

In the end, she will love the ring no matter what you get her. As long as she truly loves you. My mom has a tiny chip of a diamond. It's so small you can barely see it. She adores that ring. She also adores my dad. That is love.

That's pretty awesome! If I ever get married, I am definitely going to want something personal and special to me like that.

[Macfreak7]

Originally Posted by centerchannel68 

And YES, optically more perfect.

Synthetic diamond - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Despite being occasionally characterized as 'fake', synthetic diamond is molecularly identical to the carbon allotrope defined as diamond when referring to naturally occurring diamond. As such, it shares the same material properties and is potentially of an even higher quality than its natural counterpart."

Read it. Real diamonds are stupid.

Sorry about the late response.. been busy looking for a place for my move!
Anyway, a synthetic diamond is a diamond, only thing is that it's man made. So the optical properties are exactly the same. Of course the characteristics of a natural diamond will not be found in a synthetic diamond because the way both are created is very different. But no synthetic diamond could be BETTER than a flawless, or internally flawless natural diamond of a comparable color.
Also, synthetic diamonds have a huge limitation on size.

Anyway, like awaspaas pointed out, there are other simulants that are singly refractive, but refractive indices are different, so is their hardness. The closest you can get to the hardness of a diamond is perhaps with a colorless sapphire. That has a hardness of 9 on the Mohs scale of hardness, which is a relative scale and not absolute, so the diamond is still WAY harder than a sapphire even tho. it's just one up on the scale.
:edit: actually i almost forgot about synthetic moissanite, that has a hardness of a little over 9 and is considered the best diamond simulant. However there are many ways to test for a moissanite.. even by the average consumer. Oh, and they have double refractivity, which is a major poo-poo for something trying to be a diamond.

The list of diamond imitations includes at least 10 different stones, but none of them have the properties of a diamond. The way light reacts when it enters a diamond is what makes it look unique.. and when people try to cut these different stones the way they'd cut a diamond.. it just won't work cause the optical properties are completely different. Also setting these imitation gems in jewelry isn't always practical or easy because they tend to break or shatter when you set them since it's hardness is low. Diamonds can take a real beating, but try setting a synthetic spinel, or synthetic rutile, or a YAG.. and watch it chip/shatter. Even for cleaning purposes, it's way easier to clean a diamond.

Anyway, i'm really not trying to convince you or anyone about why they should buy diamonds, just trying to inform people since they seem to have quite a bit of misinformation about gems and such, and quite understandably so. I mean how often do you try to convince a PC user to not buy a Dell for their new laptop?
So yeah, cheers!

[centerchannel68]

Sidenote: Why do you know this much about this subject? Are you a diamond smuggler?

[Macfreak7]

Originally Posted by centerchannel68 

Sidenote: Why do you know this much about this subject? Are you a diamond smuggler?

Yep, an illegal immigrant diamond smuggler who drives an SUV with 23" wheels + spinners

I'm actually a jeweler, designer. Learned how to design and hand fabricate jewelry.. and learned about my gemstones too. It's definitely interesting to see the different perspectives people have on jewelry and diamonds and such.

[centerchannel68]

Ah. Cool. I worked at that dental lab a few years back, and a lot of the techniques I learned were applicable to jewelry design, so ... who knows... if ID doesn't work out, I might give that a shot. One thing I hated about that job was cutting off sprues after casting, and polishing. I was always THIS CLOSE to having the handpiece dig in and have the bit run around my fingers or something, but I got out before it happened. Do you subscribe to any jewelry magazines, like Art Jewelry, Bead and button, etc?

[Macfreak7]

Yeah a lot of the mold making / casting techniques are very similar to those used in different industries (esp. the automotive industry - some of them even use the same machines, at a different scale tho.). Polishing is quite easy, depending on the metal, but cutting off sprues.. no one in my class liked that either and I had no problem with it, so I mostly ended up doing it for a bunch of people, oh and we used a jewelers saw to do that. Working at a bench you're bound to get your fingers sawed through (major ouchie), hammered (not that bad), burned by a torch, get all kinds of file cuts.. but you get used to it.

There are a lot of magazines out there. I used to occassionally read some, but since i'm about to move and start a new job i'm gonna wait before i subscribe to any. I like MJSA a lot, but mostly cause it's more manufactring oriented. If you want I could suggest some more when I get back home. And if you're REALLY interested, check out gia.edu
Now, it's back to apartment hunting for me.