Tweezers and Culet

[tunis]

Have a question regarding the culet on my diamond.

Today I went to a local Jarets to compare my diamond to what they had in stock. They carry ideal cut AGS0 Peerless diamonds. My diamond is also AGS0. The jeweler had my diamond (and their diamond) set up in tweezers so that we could look under a scope at the internals for any inclusions, etc. At one point he was holding my diamond in tweezers, one part on the table the other on the culet. I don''t think he had the tweezer clamped down or anything but later I wondered just how durable a pointed culet might be? Is it possible for tweezers to damaged a culet? I think my culet measures .25%.

Thanks for your help.

Tunis

 

[neatfreak]

I''d probably avoid clamping it down all the time on it, but I think it would be highly unlikely you''d damage it from doing it a few times.

 

[tunis]

Thanks, neatfreak.

I don''t think it did any damage as it still seems very pointed but it was a bit of a concern. I know diamonds are exceedingly hard but that culet does come to a tiny little sharp point...

 

[:)]

I would be more worried about dropping it (causing a chip, etc from the blow) while holding it with tweezers!

 

[tunis]

Yeah, good point. Think I''ll leave the tweezers behind and just get this thing mounted!

Tunis

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 11/20/2008 11:25:20 PM
Author: tunis
Yeah, good point. Think I'll leave the tweezers behind and just get this thing mounted!

Tunis

I second and third not worrying too much tunis. I remember one of our esteemed experts here saying that diamonds often eat tweezers for breakfast

, and even with the more vulnerable culet I doubt it has been harmed - no worries!

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

I do agree with your concern, Tunis.

We often remind our retailers to treat diamonds with care, especially the culet. After seeing one of Wink''s videos where he showed a diamond in the exact same way, we made sure that he got special soft-tip tweezers in order to be safe.

Live long,

 

[strmrdr]

I think this is one of those things that a consumer may do it 10 times and damage the stone once.
Someone who knows what they are doing might do it hundreds of times with no issue then snap they break a culet.
Murphy says it will be a large D/IF they break it on.

 

[tunis]

Wow, thanks for the replies everyone. I did a good look over last night through the loupe and everything looks fine - a nice tight little point.

I can see the potential, however, for damage to occur holding a stone in this way.

Hoping to get some pictures up before and after it''s mounted.

Tunis

 

[Schell]

HAHA! something I can actually intelligently comment on.

My very very good friend is a geophysics Ph.D Student at CalTech. He regularly does experiments where they use 0.25ct diamond with very small cutlets (a couple hundred microns - for all intents and purposes, pointed). They then use a machine to align and press two diamonds together, cutlet to cutlet and force them together such that the amount of pressure between the two cutlets is nearing the pressure at the center of the earth. For those of you not up on your earth inner core geophysics, this is in excess of 9,000 degrees and roughly 3 million atm. (pressure at sea level is 1 atm)

The point of the experiment is to actually place a microscopic amount of a mineral, present in the inner earth's core, in between the two cutlets and examine how the mineral behaves under different stimuli under similar conditions to those found in the core.

Now I know that war round about was of saying it, but the moral of the story is while admittedly the experiments are controlled, they use D FL diamonds (as to not compromise the integrity of the diamond), and do occasionally crack them (typically only if they don't align the cutlets properly), diamonds are tough little buggers and I would imagine that you're not going to be able to hurt it with just a pair of forceps without subjecting it to an impact.