Diamond tools

[that_someone_special]

I am in the middle of getting a loupe and some locking tweezers (my first)! What are some other diamond tools that might be fun too own? (nothing tooooo expensive!)

 

[Regular Guy]

IS

 

[Todd Gray]

One of the really simple tools that we use all the time is a "diamond gripper" which holds a diamond with four wire prongs that extend when a push rod on the back of the cylinder is pressed (the prongs extend and then retract). People have a tendency to adjust the slide lock on slide lock tweezers too tightly (potential to damage girdle edge of diamond) and can shoot a diamond across the room if they are not careful, the diamond gripper makes it a little easier to handle a diamond. It''s also a great way to hold a diamond when looking for an inscription on the girdle edge, with tweezers two sides of the diamond are covered - unless you position the diamond in the tweezers so that it is held by the table facet (top) and culet (bottom point) which is a "really" good way to chip the culet!

 

[Pandora II]

I realy recommend the loupes that Belomo makes - fab optics at a very reasonable price. x10 is what I use 99% of the time - you can easily get in a mess with x30 due to the short focal distance and miss otherwise obvious features.

I also HATE locking tweezers with a vengeance. I have spent more hours on my hands and knees with nose at floor level hunting for stones that have pinged across the room because of them than I care to remember.

The stone grippers aren''t bad, but my preference is a proper pair of gem tweezers with a series of vertical grooves and one longer horizontal groove at the end. Once you get used to them it''s easy.

Penlights are also handy (the loupes with LEDS built in aren''t up too much - or at least I haven''t found a decent one yet), stone cloths to put on the worksurface (for when you drop them) and a load of lense cloths for cleaning are handy. A small bottle of alcohol (Bombay Sapphire please) is also good for cleaning - or drinking in desperation.

 

[Judah Gutwein]

Todd,

Great to see you here!

Best,

 

[Judah Gutwein]

www.kassoy.com is also a great place to find all kinds of nifty jewelry tools.
However, a warning to all diamond enthusiasts; you can wind up spending BIG money here...
Inspector Gadget would love this place.
They also have a B&M store here in the city (N.Y.C. Diamond District).

 

[Todd Gray]

Date: 1/21/2009 12:21:54 PM
Author: Pandora II

I also HATE locking tweezers with a vengeance. I have spent more hours on my hands and knees with nose at floor level hunting for stones that have pinged across the room because of them than I care to remember.

The stone grippers aren''t bad, but my preference is a proper pair of gem tweezers with a series of vertical grooves and one longer horizontal groove at the end. Once you get used to them it''s easy.

My personal best for shooting a diamond across the room is twenty five feet! Of course I had the help of the steamer unit, the diamond was set in an earring post and I was steaming it off when all of a sudden it started spinning in the steamer tweezers and before I even realized what was going on I heard a loud WHIZ sound and I heard the setting hit a file cabinet 25 feet away. We found the setting right away, minus the diamond... ripped the back half of the store apart for two days looking for the diamond (half carat) and eventually found it under (literally under) a plastic garbage can that was located four feet to my left on the opposite diagonal corner from the steamer unit! That''s right, it did a boom-a-rang! (My Aussie friend Garry Holloway can correct my spelling of that if it''s wrong) Take it to heart when those of us in the trade tell you that diamonds can fly, be careful when handling them in tweezers!

Thanks for noticing that I''m back Judah. I''m flying the flag (avatar) of High Performance Diamonds, the new site operated by Price Scope regular Wink Jones who graciously invited me to play in his sand box while much of my world is frozen in the land of probate. Feels good to be back

 

[strmrdr]

IS with ideal light
ASET
H&A viewer
10x loupe - Nikon 10x!!
10x Darkfield loupe
20x loupe
diamond tester
penlight
microscope with photo port

 

[strmrdr]

Using google you can beat kassoy''s prices by a large margin on the more common stuff.

 

[that_someone_special]

Wow! Thanks you guys for the information. Good to know about the tweezers.. I''ll be extra careful (and will look into getting more things!) Sometimes it''s hard to know where to start.