Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1875 — Dutch Diamond Cutters. [ARTICLE]

Dutch Diamond Cutters.

The Dutch diamond cutters are said to be the most skillful of any in the world. Such is their marvelous expertness that a workman will cut the whole twenty or twenty-four facets of the gem of exactly similar size, or at least so nearly of a size that a microscope only would reveal any discrepancy. Nor is the operation of polishing, which succeeds that of cutting, any less perfect. The wheel used for this process is a circular table of iron, known by the Dutch name of schuss. By means of machinery it is made to revolve with extreme rapidity, sometimes at the rate of nearly 3,000 revolutions per minute. In practice, a quantity of very fine diamond powder, moistened with olive oil, is placed on the surface of the iron table. Before the diamonds are polished they are set in a cone composed of an alioy "of lead and tin, and this cone exactly fits in a cap, which is held steady by a long handle fixed in the wall of the room, or in some convenient post. The facet of the diamond, which forms the summit of the cone, is then pressed on the revolving table, and held down by weights of lead. Great care is essential, for, should the diamond become loose in the cone, it would in all probability be much damaged by the edge of the facet being ground away. One facet having thus been properly polished, the stone is taken from the cone and refitiedwith another cone uppermost, and the same operation is repeated.