Diamond cutting is the practice of changing a diamond from a rough stone into a faceted gem. Cutting diamond requires specialized knowledge, tools, equipment, and techniques because of its extreme difficulty.
The first guild of diamond cutters and polishers (diamantaire) was formed in 1375 in Nuremberg, Germany, and led to the development of various types of 'cut'. This has two meanings in relation to diamonds. The first is the shape: square, oval, and so on. The second relates to the specific quality of cut within the shape, and the quality and price will vary greatly based on the cut quality. Since diamonds are very hard to cut, special diamond-bladed edges are used to cut them. The first major development in diamond cutting came with the "Point Cut" during the later half of the 14th century: the Point Cut follows the natural shape of an octahedral raw diamond crystal, eliminating some waste in the cutting process.
Diamond cutting, as well as overall processing, is concentrated in a few cities around the world: while 80% of rough diamonds are handled in the Antwerp diamond district in Belgium, more than 50% of processed diamonds also pass through there. Ninety-two percent of diamond pieces are cut in Surat, Gujarat state in India. The other important diamond centers are Tel Aviv and New York City.
Read more about Diamond Cutting: Diamond Cutting Process, Cutting Process
Famous quotes containing the words diamond and/or cutting:
“A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweller, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)