Here is the final shot leading up to the finished 7.30ct diamond, you can see in this photo the star facets are not yet complete but everything else is done… getting very close.

Looking great!  The diamond is now complete, shown here with it’s baby sister.  In most cases a rough diamond will finish out into one large diamond and one or more smaller diamonds.  The remaining rough will be polished into a sister diamond at a later time, for now she looks great with the big brother!

Blocking out the main 4 facets on the crown of the diamond, the process takes several days.

Now blocking out in between the 4 mains, the bezel facets to make the finished 8.

While not yet complete it is starting to look like a polished diamond.  At this point the diamond is called a single cut, which was done to show the inclusions inside to determine which way the diamond would have been best finished.  If the inclusions were left as shown in the photo the end result would have been an 8+ carat diamond.

Since only diamond can cut diamond the flat disk on the bottom is diamond powder that has been compressed and glued together.  Both the diamond disk and the diamond being bruted are glued onto a bruting dop and heated.  The glue hold them in place – that is some serious glue!

With the diamond secured polishing on the wheel can begin.

Finally, after weeks of analyzing the diamond, polishing windows and laser cutting… the cutter can finally get the start the first facet.  The table facet starts to come to life, still tough to tell what the final shape will be though isn’t it???  

A diamond is made out of pure carbon (the same material as in your pencil – the only difference is the bonding).  Unlike a led pencil which is very soft, only a diamond can cut a diamond.  The cutting/polishing wheel is charged with diamond dust, after polishing you can see a lot of black ‘stuff’ next to the polished section.  That ‘stuff’ is the carbon that was removed during the polishing process.

In preparation for the laser cut a few things needed to be done.  The rough diamond had an inclusion right below the surface, so it was fairly easy to remove.  The diamond was polished down to get rid of the inclusion, reduce some stress on the stone and provide a better view into the heart of the diamond.

Looking through the frosted rough diamond can only tell you so much about any inclusions inside.  Imagine looking in your bathroom mirror after you get out of the shower, it is all steamed up and you can’t see.  With a facet on the diamond the cutter will have a clear window that lets him see deep inside.

A black line is drawn on the diamond with a very fine maker to indicate where it should be cut.  You can see the black line on the diamond in the photo below.  With the cutting line marked the diamond was cut in half with a laser saw.

The small piece on the left side is 4.26ct and larger piece comes in at 18.17ct (some weight was lost when polishing the window).

With the work performed so far we are down to 18.17ct so we have lost 5.69ct from the large piece of rough.  A lot more of the precious diamond will be lost at it is transformed into a blazing ball of light…  more photos to come…

Most people consider a 1ct diamond to be big, a target size for millions of diamond lovers around the world.  A 2ct diamond, getting bigger… a 3ct diamond or larger and eyes start popping.

Not what you are used to seeing?  That is a rough diamond, it is currently being cut (January 2012) and we are going to be following this diamond as it is worked on the diamond wheel and brought to life.  Will it end up being round, princess cut, oval???  Currently only the cutter knows how this one is going to end up.

Stay tuned for more posts on this little guy and hopefully we can learn a thing or two from the diamond cutter about diamond cutting along the way.