Hobby is a cut above the rest

Cyril Wallis is a gemstone faceter. Photo / John Stone

While many blokes tinker away in their garages on a car or boat, Whangarei man Cyril Wallis works on something smaller and shinier.

The industrial engineer is a gemstone faceter in his spare time - taking "raw" gemstones and using specialist equipment to carve and smooth the stones, into pieces ready to be set into jewellery.

It is a time-consuming sideline, with little money to be made but there is the satisfaction of turning a dull, misshapen rock into something beautiful.

"You're always trying to cut the perfect stone," he said.

His fascination with gemstones began as a young boy, inspired by family members working in the diamond mines in his native South Africa. From around age 10 or 12, his father made him a machine and he would polish stones for hours.

The hobby fell away around age 15 but the glint returned to his eye in 2003, when he was at a gem show in Arizona in the US while living on a yacht. He bought the equipment and now has it set up in his Whangarei garage.

He could not begin to quantify the number of hours he has spent on faceting stones, but a smaller stone (1cm or so) can take up to two hours, while a larger stone can take up to six hours.

Even if the process runs smoothly, the stone can prove worthless if there is an imperfection in the centre. Faceting also wears away most of the stone itself.

"I go to a stone supplier in America, pay $50 for a stone, and you lose a minimum two-thirds of the weight."

On a desk in his living room, there are dozens and dozens of stones, some half-finished, some faceted but not polished, some in their own little plastic cases. He has some of the Gemstone Hours on the Shopping Channel recorded on his television.

He marvels at the prices the commercial stones can sell for ... $200 for a garnet ring seems extraordinary, he says, and he shows this reporter examples of stones which are not faceted correctly, meaning the smooth faces do not quite align.

"The commercial sellers manage to do these in bulk and sell them for not that much. The finish just isn't the same, but you can see the difference when you look closely." He sells some stones to local Northland jewellery makers but would love to sell more if he could.

"It's a hobby but it would be nice to get a return.

"I'm not making anything for the effort that's been put into it."

And yes, Mr Wallis's partner has a pretty impressive jewellery collection.

"She's known as Jackie Jewellery, because for each birthday she gets jewellery as a present," he said.