Crafts With Diamonds
Diamonds of fine color and clarity are beautiful, valuable stones. The art of creating jewelry for diamonds of important sizes and quality is obvious, especially if the viewer has had the fortune of seeing high quality jewelry, such as the Hope Diamond, which is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian, in person, rather than simply photographed. Less obvious are the skills or specific crafts necessary to turn diamonds into jewelry.
Other People Are Reading
-
Industrial Uses
-
The first use of diamonds, the one on which most modern jewelry depends, is an industry in its own right. This is the use of small and poor-quality diamond crystals, flakes and powder for cutting and polishing hard, durable materials, particularly gemstones, especially other diamonds. Without the use of industrial diamonds in saw blades and cutting and polishing compounds, gemstones could not be cut and polished to modern standards of brilliance and fineness.
Engraving
-
Diamond tips are also used in engraving tools. Engraving jewelry is an art in its own right, whether the craftsman uses hand tools or a machine to carefully cut metal from the surface of a ring or a cufflink. The hardness of metal permits a craftsman to cut very fine, crisp lines that cannot be duplicated by wax casting techniques, and diamond-tipped tools are the best way of achieving these fine lines.
-
Sorting Diamonds
-
Diamond crystals recovered from the mine are sorted according to a variety of criteria. Clarity and color are the most important criteria for gem diamonds. Since these stones will all be cut, their shape is not very important. Ugly, opaque stones that are nevertheless internally sound will become industrial diamonds because their structure is durable. Ugly stones whose internal structure is very weak because of cracks and inclusions are crushed into abrasives.
Cutting Diamonds
-
Diamond cutters transform diamond crystals, often greasy or coated in appearance, into polished gems. A master cutter can turn these pretty pebbles into prisms that gather light, condensing it and reflecting it internally until that light becomes the fire for which diamonds are famous. The cutter will also cut the stone in such a manner as to preserve its weight while eliminating flaws. A mistake can shatter and ruin a stone.
Jewelry Design and Manufacturing
-
Gem diamonds are overwhelmingly used in jewelry, rather than decorative pieces. Most of this jewelry is pedestrian, worth only the weight of metal and stones and valued for the emotions and memories the piece evokes in its owner. However, the value of high jewelry often greatly exceeds the worth of the metal and stones: Buccellatti, in particular, is famous for the delicacy of its metalwork, which it emphasizes with gemstones, especially diamonds. The House of Faberge, a company that employed hundreds of master craftsmen, often used diamonds to emphasize its extraordinary enamel work.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit WPA Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images
