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Birthstone for September -- Sapphire

Sapphire -- Jewelry Making Gemstone for SeptemberThe birthstone for September is the sapphire.  Sapphire is the gemstone quality version of the mineral corundum.  Chemically, sapphire is aluminum oxide and is almost identical to a ruby.  For this reason the sapphire and the ruby have very similar characteristics.  Sapphire can come in almost any color, with the colors being determined by the impurities in the stone.  The more red versions of a sapphire are a ruby.   With that said, blue is considered the normal color for a sapphire for use in jewelry.  The blue color results from titanium and iron inclusions in the crystal.  Many naturally occurring, mined sapphires are gray in color.  Frequently, these sapphires will have their color blue improved by heating the gemstone for several hours and a temperature of 1,800 degrees centigrade. 

Some gemstone quality sapphires exhibit asterism.  Asterism is the optical property of displaying a star when illuminated by a single sight source.  Star sapphires like the 182 carat Star of Bombay Sapphire demonstrate this optical property. 

The hardness of a sapphire, like a ruby is 9.0 on the Mohs hardness scale.  While this hardness makes the sapphire the second hardest naturally occurring material, the sapphire is still about 1/4 as hard as a diamond.  Fortunately, a sapphire is 4 times harder than most glass and sand. 

Because of this hardness and the fact that sapphires can be made in a laboratory relatively cheaply, there are several industrial applications for a sapphire.  In fact, man-made or lab created sapphires have become relatively commonplace.  Sapphire crystals can be grown in a lab up to many inches in size.  Clear sapphire is used as watch faces and as optical components.  Sapphire wafers are also used in the semiconductor industry as a base for semiconductor components.  Sapphires and rubies have both been used in making lasers.  Man-made sapphires are also available for use in making jewelry. 

For more information on sapphires, visit the Wikipedia article here.

To view our selection of man-made blue sapphire gemstones select the picture above-right or select here. 

  Birthstones                    View our Sapphire Jewelry Making Kits

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sapphire"
Last updated 3/30/2007

This WigJig web page is provided as part of WigJig University - College of Jewelry Making Techniques.  We try to provide interesting jewelry making techniques using beads, jewelry wire and other jewelry supplies.  We hope that the jewelry making skills taught on these web pages will provide you enough information for you to incorporate these techniques in your own jewelry making projects.  For beginners, we suggest that you start with a visit to our Beginners Jewelry Making pages. These pages discuss the skills necessary for making jewelry in the detail that beginners need. We also suggest that beginners to jewelry making might need to visit the WigJig University College of Jewelry Making Designs for jewelry making projects using the skills and techniques shown here. 

 Most, but not all of the jewelry supplies shown here can be purchased in our WigJig store.  We try to have a complete selection of jewelry supplies in our store including chain, wire, glass beads, findings, watches, tools, etc. 

The jewelry making projects shown here do not use Sterling Silver.  The reason for this is simple, it is harder to get good pictures of Sterling Silver wire components than with colored wire including gold-filled, copper, or brass wire.  Any project shown in colored wire can be made in Sterling Silver wire.