[Jewelry making - Article 00060] - Re: [Orchid] How to Tighten Princess Cut Diamonds?

[leonid surpin]

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    Happy new year everybody. 

    Drew, 

>     I don't take whatever I read/watch/hear from "industry leaders" as
>     gospel. 

    you are so right about "industry leaders". 

    Large part of my business is engagement rings and whenever a
    customer asks for a princess cut I alway talk them out of it. 

    Princess cut, in my opinion, is an obscenity which has been
    perpetrated on the public by the "industry leaders". There is a cut
    designed for low R.I. stones called Barion cut, which is basically
    deep pavilion which enhances internal reflections. The lower R.I. the
    steeper the angle. Princess cut is an extension of that idea, but in
    case of diamond is does not improve the stone appearance, it simply
    allows cutters to save material. It also introduces a lot of problems
    for the jewelers. 

    The original post asks how to tighten princess cut in the Tiffany
    setting. Tiffany setting was designed to allow light to reach stone
    pavilion. While it is beneficial for brilliant cut, it does nothing
    to the princess cut. 

    Let us understand the issues involved in setting of princess cut. 

    Princess cut is produced by taking an octohedral ( 2 square pyramids
    joint at bases ) diamond crystal, sawing it in half and faceting each
    half to produce 2 stones. Since no bruting ( rounding off ) is
    involved and pavilion angle is closely matches native angle of the
    rough, it is easy to see why the industry loves it so much. 

    Diamond cleavage direction is parallel to the octohedral face of the
    crystal. Old timers in this business still remember the practice of
    squaring the diamond which was done to avoid placing prongs in the
    position to exert pressure in the direction of the cleavage. In
    princess cut it is almost impossible. Whether one uses v-prong
    technique or any other, there are only 2 choices, the direction of
    force will be either in the direction of the cleavage or at 45
    degrees angle to it. Using direction of the cleavage is not advisable
    for understandable reasons. Using 45 degree angle means applying
    pressure exactly to the corner of the stone, it's weakest part. Not a
    good solution either. 

    Princess cut could be set by devising a setting where stone rests
    some distance below girdle and prongs should hug the girdle and come
    down on the crown away from the edge thus avoiding the cleavage
    direction, but it would look real ugly. 

Leonid Surpin.
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