Supposing you are setting a ‘humongous’ 1+ ct. Princess-Cut diamond &
halfway through your setting, you see that the stone is damaged.
It’s your fault!!!..(even though you didn’t do it!) Cost to repair
=>$1,000’s out of your pocket.
What should you have done first? Us a loupe & examine every corner of
the Princess stone, even on the Pavillion-facets underneath.
Those four-corners are areas that might be the easiest to get broken.
Go to my 2 photographs & see the other places that breakage might
occur.
Re; Girdles are also prone to getting broken, but those four corners
are the worst! Basically, you have 14 places chipping can & will
occur. If it takes you minutes to examine a stone, let the client
know of any defects & get them noted!!!
Gerry is so on the money with this one. Went to set a black CZ
yesterday round signity cut.
Put it in the bezel setting, louped it to check bezel height. And
WTF? There was a very very tiny chip on the edge of one of the facets
could not see it under 3 power glasses but with the loupe yes.
Luckily I had a replacement stone.
Hi Gerry, thanks for all you show us, soon as I am well enough to
get back to the bench, I am going to make a one sided graver to try
some bright cutting. I have a Princess cut diamond (just under half a
ct), that is chipped in at least 3 of the places you have diagrammed.
It was for my wife’s wedding ring. I did my best to talk her out of
it, because after living with her and making and repairing her
jewelry for over 35 years, I knew this was the worst stone she could
have picked. I am sure you have had that occasional customer that can
destroy a tank, buy from you. The one in a thousand that makes you
sorry you fix your own products for free. I love her dearly, but
that’s my wife. For the first couple of years I inspected it to the
point of irritation. Then I began to relax. A few years later, I saw
something was wrong while we were at dinner. As bad as my eyes have
gotten, I knew if I could see a problem from the other side of the
table, it was really going to be a problem. When I removed the stone,
3 of the corners were badly chipped, and one of the edges of the
pavilion going down to the cullet. All of that was just to preface
the question of do you know a good cutter, and can you guess whether
it is worth cutting. I have never had a diamond repaired before, I
only broke one in all these years. Was tightening a pear shape for a
good customer for free, and popped the tip right off. Had to replace
a 1/3 ct good quality stone, but still lost the customer. That was
small enough that I just didn’t repair it, but this is a little
larger, and a clean white stone, not to mention my wife’s ring.
Thomas III
The black CZ are dreadfully prone to chipping, much much worse than
any other colour. I think this is because of the amount of other
material added to the zirconium oxide makes it less stable. many
years ago, when they first started making these materials CZ was
nearly always yttrium oxide stabilised and the material was so tough
it was almost impossible to cut. By using calcium oxide they have
made it easier to produce a crystalline form that is pretty OK to cut
and polish but is not as tough so wouldnt be used as a ceramic
thermal barrier coating but you can get all of the pretty colours.
I use a 10x loupe for looking at stones when polishing and also when
setting. A bit of a strain on the eye when you have to continually
switch your focus but you get used to it.