Jewelry Making: What Is A Loupe?

A diamond ring company or any geological industry makes use of a certain tool that allows ring designers or researchers to examine gemstones about gemological properties. This helps in bringing more clarity to jewelry designs or research activities.

In simpler terms, loupes are magnifiers. They are used in simple optical devices to view minute and detailed features of gemstones. However, on the contrary to magnifying glass or lenses, loupes have a shorter focal length, hence used closer to the eyes.

Most Common Lens Types

Loupes are used for most common things:

• To understand characteristics before and after cleaning the gemstones.
• Crafting bespoke personalized diamond rings or custom wedding rings with needle-like details.
• To make watches.
• Surgeries and dentistry (using binocular lens loupes).

So what are the different types of lenses in loupes you’ll find?

• Singlet Lens — A loupe with only one lens fixed and used just for magnification is said to have a single lens.
• Doublet — In this case, a doublet is a case where two lenses come together or get glued together, ultimately helping magnify and improve the clarity of any gemstone, especially in ring redesigns.
• Triplet — Triplet has neat features for it improves clarity and color to 3X times better than single or double lenses. They show high accuracy with decreased diameter contrasting to the prior two lenses.

Loupes Magnification

Magnification is also an important factor in loupes, along with the lens options. 10X is the standard magnification for objects to be magnified. Loupe lenses are often used to inspect small items. The size of the field on these types of loupes can be limiting, especially when you want it wider than what’s offered by your goggles or binoculars.

The magnification power will depend largely upon how much distortion there is around each edge — which affects not only its effectiveness but also where exactly you’re looking while using them! More powerful versions come out with larger screens for viewing things up close. Also, it can be a trial and error method to figuring out the real way to use a loupe while making custom wedding rings. Therefore, it is recommended to hold the loupe about an inch away from your eyes. Also, keep moving the objects according to your needs maintaining the focal lengths. Do not make much movement and maintain healthy stability to keep image clarity. Rest your thumb knuckle against your cheekbone or the corner of your eyeglasses to hold the loupe. And you should keep the arm holding the object (to be noticed) on a table or any surface to prevent any shakes.

Simple loupes that have moderate magnification are often made as biconvex lenses. If you wish to have your loupe larger than the usual one, you can go for the aspheric lens. There are also achromatic loupes that have larger magnification features. However, it tends to produce substantial image distortions.

Few More Things to Know

Jewel Smiths is a California-based jewelry boutique store prompting experienced and talented professionals who craft bespoke jewelry and have a great customer base. It is one of the leading jewelry stores in California, offering excellent customer service, and even has room for ring redesigns.

If it’s your wedding or engagement, or perhaps a proposal, now be more confident of your choice as Jewel Smiths have ample ring designs susceptible to your budget.