Shards for the regular men

[Corax]

11 hours ago, CrazyRioter said:

I expect that chips are just leftovers from cutting larger gems, rather than tiny gems cut in there own right. You wouldn't be able to use a dead sprenblade for that purpose anyway, it is too big for the precision required.

See, I imagine the blade as being stationary in this particular instance, and the gem as the object you're moving.

Chips still have to be well-cut to hold stormlight. I'm also thinking of this exchange:

MS-07B-3

So what you're telling me is that not only my first edition Words of Radiance, but also my first edition Way of Kings are Dragonsteel guaranteed to be worth at least a sapphire broam in ten years time.

Peter Ahlstrom

I wouldn’t go so far as that! Looks like 2-carat cut sapphires are going for about $2000. They printed tens of thousands of copies of Way of Kings. They’re not that rare.

MS-07B-3

Ah, so is that the Canon size of the gem in a broam?

Peter Ahlstrom

Yes. 2 carats.

RShara

Oh, I've been curious about this for a long time. One of my hobbies is working with gemstones, so knowing the sizes (and cuts, because of how light is affected by the cut) of the gemstones in spheres and Soulcasters would be wonderful!

PeterAhlstrom

I'm not sure about the cuts, but broams are 2 carats and the other sizes are proportional to their value.

RShara

Thank you, that helps a lot!

would be happy to offer input on cuts, should that ever be wanted

Peter Ahlstrom

The canonization of the cuts is being worked on, just not by me.

Argent

This is great to know, thanks! One last clarification though: is this proportionality linear? In other words:

* Since there are 4 marks per broam, does that make marks 0.5 carats each?

* Since there are 5 chips per mark, does that make chips 0.1 carats each?

Or is there some wonky formula with diminishing returns?

Peter Ahlstrom

Yeah, that's it.

Phantine

Just to clarify, as a jeweler I think those numbers might be a bit on the small side.

A 2 carat sapphire (assuming a standard well proportioned round cut) is going to be about 8 millimeters in diameter.

A 1 ct sapphire is going to be around 5 mm ish.

A 0.1 carat sapphire would be really tiny. Like, about 1 mm in diameter ish? Depends heavily on how shallow the cut is.

It just seems way too tiny (and imagine the poor high-precision lapidarists working on making pennies - diamonds require specialized cutting equipment because they're WAY harder than anything else)

Peter Ahlstrom

Those sizes are pretty much right.

source

[Calderis]

Chips are likely shavings cut off when cutting higher quality gems. Yes, a well cut gem holds Stormlight better but uncut gem hold Stormlight as well. 

A better cut just means slower leakage. 

Were told in book that chips are just a "Splinter" 

Quote

The glass part of most spheres was the same size; the size of the gemstone at the center determined the denomination. The three chips, for instance, each had only a tiny splinter of diamond inside. Even that was enough to glow with Stormlight, far fainter than a lamp, but still visible. A mark—the medium denomination of sphere—was a little less bright than a candle, and it took five chips to make a mark.

At 0.1 carats, I just don't see any meaningful cuts being differentiated. Chips probably aren't even well standardized, it's just ones too small to work with... 

[Corax]

On a quick whim I twittered a tweet at The Great and Mighty Peter:

Quote

Corax

@PeterAhlstrom Hi there... I have a silly and trivial Stormlight question for you if you're not too busy: are all currency-grade gems cut gemstones? Or are chips literal chips and splinters that are essentially uncut? Many thanks!

Peter Ahlstrom

They're all cut gemstones.

Here's a link to the tweet.

[Calderis]

@Corax What I'm talking about would still be "cut." 

There would be a big difference between a small, but natural and uncut gem, and and a small piece cut free from a larger gem to give the larger the shape you want. 

My doubt is in if the chips are intentionally cut and faceted to a specific shape. If they are calling them "splinters" seems odd.

I could be totally wrong. Just seems like some very special tools would be needed for work that minute and precise. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Calderis

[Corax]

@Calderis I agree that you would need a very special tool to cut them.

 

[Calderis]

4 minutes ago, Corax said:

@Calderis I agree that you would need a very special tool to cut them.

 

Not what I meant. I meant more magnification and positioning tools. 

That could probably be built around a Shardblade... Just yeah. Seems difficult to mass produce. 

And spheres have to be mass produced. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Calderis

[CrazyRioter]

You definitely couldn't cut something that small with a dead sprenblade. They are simply too large for the precision required. A living spren might be able to become an appropriate tool, but that's definitely not mass producible and Radiants have more urgent things to do with their time.

[Corax]

I think it would be entirely doable, depending on how you mount the blade. But I feel like I'm going around in circles here.

(PS: I hope I don't come off as argumentative, I'm just musing on this line of thought and I don't mean to antagonize anyone.)

[Spoolofwhool]

I really can't see how a dead shardblade would be usable for this purpose. Keep in mind that mounting the blade somewhere would require the holder to know how to command it to stay mentally, which requires training, which unless there's a secret line of craftsmen keeping shardblades in hiding while also training their successors in the necessary skills, it feels really unlikely. Also, it's not like they need some mystical art to cut the gems at this scale. Ancient civilizations have been able to cut gems to extremely small sizes for jewelry. 

[CrazyRioter]

I just don't see how you could cut a tiny gemstone with a six-foot long blade, that is thicker than the gem. It just wouldn't work. It'd be like trying to sew with a railroad spike.

[Corax]

I'm not expressing myself well, but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm sorry for disagreeing. I didn't mean to irk anyone. I apologize.

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Corax said:

I'm not expressing myself well, but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm sorry for disagreeing. I didn't mean to irk anyone. I apologize.

Just because we disagree doesn't mean you've said anything that needs to be apologized for. You've been very polite, and there's no reason to feel guilty about anything. 

Picking this stuff apart is just kind of what we do... 

[Nymeros]

Dalinar thought Shards were made using lost technology and he was wondering why that tech was only used to make tools of war. He had no idea how shards were actually made and I don't think it's something more complicated.

[Spoolofwhool]

@Corax You've done nothing that needs apologizing for. Don't worry about it, and you've been very clear with your arguments. 

Edited September 14, 2018 by Spoolofwhool

[tmnsquirtle]

I could see this going either way. Would the king donate his shardblade to the treasury in times of peace to help them cut gems more precisely? Probably. Would it be a practical way to cut gemstones? Ehhh.... From my experience in manufacturing (wood only, so take this with a grain of salt) that kind of tool would be fairly easy to use. Imagine chopping vegetables with the sharpest knife you've ever used and make it even sharper. The shape is the only prohibiting factor, and if you're smart you might be able to mitigate that with a housing not unlike a chop saw and some vice grips for the gems.

But on the other hand, it's a silly use for a blade and probably not financially viable. And also not as elegant as conventional tools. So I'm a bit torn.

[Guest Edonidd]

While I personally don't think it's even feasible for cutting gemstones, with the precision required it's much easier to move the cutting instrument rather then the whole gemstone as a blade would require.  Second you would have to work extremely close to a blade that would need to be sharpened to essentially a razor's edge.  One tiny slip and you have dead hands and/or fingers.  And then you have to explain how you have shardblade injuries.  And there are many more problems than this.

 

But none of that matters.  It's a non starter.  The idea itself is not feasible.

 

Obviously nobody just recently cleaned out grannies attic after she passed and found a shardblade.  It has to be something that's been in the family for a long time.  With every member of the family agreeing to keep it a secret, at every point in their life.

 

It would essentially be the same as somebody having the winning lottery ticket, but not cashing it in because they wrote the recipe for some cookies on the back, and they want to sell those cookies at the local mall.  It just doesn't make sense.