To begin cutting, the sapphire is attached to the dop stick with a big glob of wax on the table. A hollow cone is used to center the stone perfectly on the dop so it is ready for faceting.

     First, the arm of the faceting machine is set at 90 degrees and the gem is turned smoothly against the lap making it perfectly round.

     Next, it's time to begin cutting the pavilion facets that meet in a point at the bottom of the stone, called the culet. First each of the 16 rough facets are cut to establish the depth of the pavilion which is the bottom half of the stone. The angle of these facets is calculated according to the refractive index of the gem material being cut; how much that gem bends light. A cutter needs to know how gems handle light in order to maximize brilliance.

     After these main facets are cut, the cutter switches to a finer grit diamond lap to begin the final cutting of smaller facets and the final polishing. For the fine cutting of sapphire, the cutter uses fine diamond paste on an aluminum lap. The aluminum transfers the heat out of the sapphire a lot better than other polishing laps, and lets the cutter polish harder without melting the wax that holds the stone on the dop. Depending on the type of gem, polishing may be done with a tin lap and corundum powder or cerium oxide polish. Sometimes oil is used as a lubricant instead of water.