Intro To The Modern Jamb Peg

Not interested in cutting large fancy stones? But would like to cut all the standard commercial shapes, quickly, easily and as good as your eyesight will allow? Then read on.
I started faceting as a hobby in the mid 60's, in 1973 I visited the central Qld. sapphire fields for a couple of weeks and stayed 23 years. Most of that time was spent cutting sapphires for a living, later I started to make jewellery.
My first machine was an Australian built Robilt, next was an American built Prismatic, this was the machine I started cutting with in Rubyvale, then gave the Ultra-Tec a go, next was a Facetron and then a Fac-Ette, which lasted a considerable time, wore out two protractors before I parted company with it.
I had the chance to try out a modern jamb peg overseas. I spent a couple of weeks where I could try my first jamb peg cutting, I was given a few pieces of aquamarine to cut, and was left to it, but not for long...
I was told to forget the way I cut on a mast machine and to "listen to the music" which was the sound of the other cutters in the room. I did get seven stones finished and still have them.
My machine is a modern industrial jamb peg. A 64 index dopstick is used for most of the standard commercial cuts, a 48 index dopstick is used for trillion cuts. The machine is highly accurate and there are no parts to wear out, I've been using mine for about 25 years and never had a problem.
There are a lot of negative comments regarding stones cut on the jamb peg. There are different styles of these machines (see Justin K Prim's "A Brief History of Jambpeg Faceting" on the video page) and commercially they are used for speed. There are cutting factories where they cut 20-30 stones, maybe more, a day all by eye, so you can't make comparisons between a Jamb peg machine used for commercial faceting and one used for precision faceting. If these machines are set up correctly then achieving perfect facet meets is not a problem.
I'm quite sure if you tried to cut the same amount of stones on a mast machine or a hand piece machine the cutting would not be so good? I also wonder how good a stone the commercial Jamb Peg cutters could produce if they were being paid $50 - $80 ct. cutting fee?
My site is purely personal and relates only to the use of the modern jamb peg such as the BHandasa (Israel) and the KMT Brahm and Som (India) and was never intended to be a proper tutoriaI, just enough to cover the basics and get you interested. What I show here is the way I do it, it's not hard and in only a few hours you will be cutting.
Bob Lakey