Cut

Diamonds are luxury goods. People are willing to buy them irrespective of high price because it is best suitable for jewelry. Why are diamonds on high demand for jewelry?

    Diamonds sparkle better than any other jewelry today. They store light and sparkle. Today it is a luxurious status of having diamonds as necklace, bracelet, rings, etc. Cut plays a vital role in diamonds fire, brilliance and scintillation which we will discuss further. Cut is general terms means craft. Like any other material wood, limestone, etc; diamonds are also crafted.

History:

    Diamond cutting process has been known since 6th century in Indian subcontinent. In 14th century, diamonds were fashioned for jewelry.  Before 15th century it was cutting natural diamonds with other natural diamonds only. Slowly improvements were made and in 15th  century a tool called scaif was introduced by a Flemish polisher called Lodewyk Van Berquem. This tool is infused with diamond dust and olive oil for cutting diamonds. First brilliant cut was introduced in 17th century called Mazarins and later various cuts came into place. In 20th century, Marcel Tolkowsky, analyzed the cut called round brilliant. His calculations took both brilliance and scintillation into consideration creating a balance between them. This round brilliant was further modified and later laboratories standardized them.

What is fire, brilliance and scintillation?

      1. Fire:

     When light passes through the diamond, it plays inside the diamond creating a color to itself and then dispersed out. Colorful light dispersed out of the diamond is called Fire.

      2. Brilliance:

    When light passes through the diamond, some light will be dispersed out immediately as white or transparent color. White light dispersed out of the diamond is called brilliance. When you zoom into the diamond, black and white color facets have to be balanced otherwise it will have the best brilliance to disperse white light out.

      3. Scintillation:

    Flashing of light when you move the diamond is called Scintillation

    Diamond cuts are graded according to laboratory. There are many labs in the market with their respective cuts but GIA stand ahead of all. They are:

1. Excellent
2. Very good
3. Good
4. Fair
5. Poor

    Where Excellent is the best cut and Poor is the worst cut. In the past years Good and Fair cuts were more often used. As the technology increased, today we target every diamond Excellent, Very good and atleast Good. Fair and Poor are almost out of market. When you put an Excellent stone beside a Poor stone you will the difference immediately.  

      1. Excellent:

    Bet me- You will love to buy Excellent cut diamond at a higher price because it has highest Fire, brilliance and scintillation than any other cut. Today every factory produces atleast 70% of their diamonds as Excellent cut to get premium value on the diamonds when they sell to the consumers. Many retailers claim to have higher demand for Excellent cut because they are sold out immediately from the store as they ATTRACT most.

    Manufacturing:

    Manufacturing of these diamonds are not easy. They consume more time, need a high skilled polisher, high technological equipment, many consumables needed and high skilled Quality checker and finally leading to high manufacturing cost

      2. Very good:

    This cut is lower than Excellent cut. They produce decent fire, brilliance and scintillation but lower compared to Excellent. Manufacturers slowly upgraded their factories from Very good to Excellent. Today every factory produces atleast 20-25% of their diamonds as Very good cut. As the technology increased it is quite easy to produce this cut.

    Manufacturing:

    Manufacturing of these diamonds are easy. They consume moderate time, need a semi skilled polisher, moderate technological equipment, low consumables needed and semi skilled Quality checker and finally leading to moderate manufacturing cost

      3. Good:

    This cut is lower than Very good cut. They produce low fire, brilliance and scintillation. Today every factory produces 5-10% of their diamonds as Good cut. As the technology increased it is very easy to produce this cut.

    Manufacturing:

    Manufacturing of these diamonds are very easy. They consume low time, need a low skilled polisher, low technological equipment, low consumables needed and low skilled Quality checker and finally leading to low manufacturing cost

    4,5. Fair and Poor:

    These cuts are lower than Good cut. Currently they are almost out of business. No one want to buy these when the same store have Excellent, Very good and Good cuts. Basically no demand in the market and no manufacturer wants to produce these cuts.

      If Excellent is the best cut then why don't factories manufacture only Excellent?

    Diamonds have 4 c's which will impact its value in jewelry. These 4c's are color, clarity, cut and carat. To maximize the profit, manufacturers have to ensure that they get the best color, clarity, cut and carat from the diamond. If there comes a situation that they have to compromise on either of the 4c's then Cut have to be given up.

    We have learnt how cuts are graded. Now we will learn how cuts are manufactured:

1. Parameters
2. Polish
3. Symmetry

    The above stated are totally depended on the planners and polishers(designing and crafting the diamond).

      1. Parameters:

    Diamonds are manufactured into different shapes. Example: Round, Oval, Pear, Cushion, Radiant, etc. Each shape have their own respective multiple facets. These facets have specific angle which means that the polisher who is polishing the diamond will polish a facet at a certain degree.

    Lets imagine a house construction. An engineer will draw a blue print with specifications of wall as 20 feet height, window of 5*5 feet, house model to be round, design on the wall to look beautiful. Similarly diamonds are also crafted.

Example: One facet(Let me call it wall for you) of the diamond will be polished at an angle say 35° and other can be polished at 35° or 41°, height of facet to be 0.5 or 1 mm etc. These are called parameters. Today we have machines to confirm the grade of the diamond.

    Parameter features are as follow:

• Diameter(mm)
• Pavilion angle(°)
• Crown angle(°)
• Pavilion half angle(°)
• Crown half angle(°)
• Pavilion depth(%)
• Crown depth(%)
• Girdle(%)
• Girdle min-max(none to extremely thick)
• Table(%)
• Total depth(%)
• Star angle(°)

      2. Polish:

    Smooth finishing of the facets is called polish. After you construct the building you need to make the surface smooth to look beautiful. Similarly, while polishing the diamond using tools, facets will end up having scratches or lines or abrasions, etc. They need smoothing to make the facets beautiful. Polish features are graded depending on the human eye.

    Polish features are as follows:

• Polish or smoothing lines
• Scratches
• Claw lines
• Pit
• Abrasion
• Nick
• Lizard skin
• Rough girdle
• Burn marks

      3. Symmetry:

    Alignment of facet to facet is called symmetry. While constructing the house you always maintain alignment between walls, windows, etc. Imagine after closing the entrance door of the house you see a gap between entrance door and the wall. You will be extremely angry with the alignment of the door and wall. Similarly, diamonds shall also be crafted to the best symmetry between the facets. Most of the features can be confirmed by the machine and very few by human eye.

    Symmetry features are as follows:

• Table culet alignment
• Table off center
• Culet off center
• Pavilion angle variation
• Crown angle variation
• Girdle out of round or uneven outline
• Wavy girdle
• Girdle thickness variation
• Not pointing
• Non octagon table
• Misshapen facets
• Missing facets
• Extra facets
• Over closed facets
• Open facets

    All features of parameter, polish and symmetry are analyzed by the laboratories and finally they will be graded as Excellent, Very good, Good, Fair or Poor.