The cutters become suspicious....
In order
to cut and polish natural diamonds, diamond cutters rely on the
concept of 'directional hardness' to cut and polish diamonds. In
simpler terms, think of the expression 'a chain is only as strong
as its weakest link' - even diamond, the strongest substance known
to man, has weak links that can be exploited by angling the strong
link of one diamond against the weak link of another - that is
how diamonds go from rough crystal to polished beauties.
In
1986, the GIA research department took some small sample man-made
diamonds from
Sumitomo, and
asked cutters in New York and Los Angeles to facet them for them. They
did not inform the cutters of the origin of these stones, rather
simply asked them to move them from rough to finished diamonds. These
diamonds were successfully cut into both round and emerald cut
diamonds, after which the GIA informed the cutters of the true origin
of the diamonds (man-made by
Sumitomo).
The cutters stated that while they were unaware that they were
man-made, they had become suspicious about them because of the
following noted differences:
a)
Man-made diamonds proved to me much tougher/resistant to being cleaved
and sawn. This is similar to the Belgian diamond cutters M. Bonroy's
findings in 1967 that Russian lab-grown diamonds proved to be
extremely difficult to cut.
b) Freedom from
knots and other difficult to work with defects commonly found in
natural diamonds
c)
Man-made diamonds were only able to be polished in one direction
(effectively stronger in more directions than naturals).
d) Man-made
diamonds were less brittle than natural diamonds.
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