in our last video we showed you uncut
diamonds but today we're going to take
you behind the scenes and show you how a
mega diamond like this one is cut and
Polished into something like this but
first to the room where Diamond deals
get
done this room is where it happens where
people come and look at the diamonds and
decide do I want to buy it or not or
perhaps can I afford to buy it so over
here we have a selection of diamonds
which are about to be auctioned this
small collection is worth about $10
million my favorite one is the one over
here because it Sparkles so much can you
take this one and put it on its face and
you can see it is shaped in a pyramid or
a cone and it has 57 different faces
which gives it this really beautiful
sparkling color this is called a round
cut presumably because it's circular you
can also have diamonds cut in the shape
of a
heart last time we showed you diamonds I
got really excited when they fluoresced
for me that was the best part of all I
thought they were much more valuable I
now realize that I was completely wrong
fluorescence lowers the price here when
people are buying they check the
fluorescent again so there is a
fluorescent lamp and perhaps if we try
that one
first so you can see this one is
fluorescing relatively strongly and this
will probably affect the price so let's
try another
one and you can see that one isn't
fluorescing at all so this one's my
favorite can we check this one good
luck nice nice so it's okay I chose a
good one for once are you still going to
buy that one then no I think I'll leave
that for you
Brady this cut which is called the
princess cut is technically the most
difficult to do because of the very
square shape and so in terms of the
actual processing this is the most
difficult one in the whole box
so now we've got some really special
Stones those three stones together are
probably worth $30 million the most
exciting one is this pink one in the
middle you may have read about it in the
newspapers it's just been cut it's going
to be sent for auction nobody knows the
true price that they'll get tens of
millions of dollars and we on periodic
videos are giving you a preview can you
take it down
so this diamond is
14.85% carats so you can see that nearly
half the mass of the diamond was lost
when it was cut and this lost Diamond
disappears as dust this it's got a
special color called Fancy Deep Purple
purle pink and it's the largest diamond
of this color that has ever been found
and Polished I think I prefer it to the
pink
one and it's cheaper I could get two or
three of these for the same
price this yellow one is also very
interesting the yellow one is yellow
because of nitrogen in the ltis every so
often one of the carbon atoms in the
ltis has been replaced by nitrogen and
it is these nitrogen centers that give
it the yellow
color the pink stone is different the
color doesn't come from an impurity but
the fact that every so often there is a
mistake in the ltis and these
dislocations in the ltis give rise to
the
color when now in the room where they
polish the Diamonds the key effect is
obtained by getting the precise angles
between the different facets that you
polish so over here we have a machine
which is a spinning disc going at 2,600
RPM with diamond dust on the disc so
polish the surface the operator has a
plan for his particular Diamond which
tells tells him what he should do which
angles much of the time is spent
adjusting the diamond before you
actually polish because if you get it
wrong and make a mistake you've had it
each of the tools has a little spirit
level on the top so that you can make
sure that it's absolutely flat and so
the angle you get is
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correct this here is the diamond that Al
was polishing here is his plan and then
here on the computer screen the angles
between the faces that is measured to
see how it Compares with the plan and
what it should be doing of course when
you grind it you get a lot of dust and
so there are extractors like a fume
cupboard that is sucking air all the
time to remove all this very fine carbon
dust which is generated when you grind
the diamond it's amazing to me that so
much of the diamond has to be wasted so
it's just blown out presumably onto the
roof of this building this is not at all
what I expected but it's really good
because it shows that you need huge
technical experience to turn these
diamonds these rough diamonds into
something that people want to buy and
wear I suppose I expected it to be much
more mechanized
but since every diamond is different you
have to do it by hand because you can't
get automated machines that will treat
each one completely differently here
we're just looking at one of the Diss
and you can see they can change the
discs it's a bit like your home electric
drill or electric polisher but of course
this is much more sophisticated
what does this feel like is it rough or
smooth
or so I'm about to touch the disc to see
what it feels like I expect it to feel a
bit rough like a nail file feels
completely
smooth wouldn't know there was any
diamond dust there at all bit of a
disappointment well I think it's smooth
because the diamond particles are so
small that our fingers are too
insensitive to feel them because if they
were if we could feel it it would
probably make scratches on the
diamond there's the man who polished the
pink diamond took two
months a one karat diamond which is2 of
a gram 200 mg takes four or 5 days to do
a big one like the rose Diamond took 2
months and the biggest diamonds they do
take half a year it's quite warm in here
it's very noisy compared to say an
ordinary lab but not terribly noisy and
there's a slight smell perhaps an oily
smell this is the machine for measuring
the angles the diamond is spun round
there is a light beam coming down here
some sort of light source down there
with a lens system in here and the focus
beam is then reflected
and because they know the speed they can
measure the angle and it all comes out
on the computer this is anatol his
computer is the design for the rose
Diamond the really valuable Rose Diamond
showing how they decided how to cut it
the light part is the outline of the
rough diamond and the blue is the
finished Rose stone which is going to be
sold which we've seen the yellow part is
the reference plane where they cut the
diamond so they have somewhere to start
with and then all the Angles and
everything else are referred to that
orange one green places are
defects and so what they've had to do is
very very carefully design the cut so
that it cuts out the defects but without
wasting any of the good part of the
diamond but you can see on here how much
of it has to be lost to produce
something that looks really good in a
piece of
jewelry here you can see on the screen
the rough diamond with all its defects
it's done by a special company that does
the measurements and then it sends them
here they designed the shape not so much
to get the maximum weight but to make
the rose color the pink color as strong
as possible this is showing where they
cut the first face they use a laser to
Mark the edge of the piece that they're
going to cut off the precise
instructions are on a piece of paper but
then they're physical markers so that
the person who is grinding it knows
exactly where to go to
this is the department where they cut
the diamonds with a laser you need to
waste as little material as possible so
the laser beam needs to be as tightly
focused as you can at the same time you
don't want to heat the diamond too much
because it's carbon in principle it
could catch fire so you use a stream of
water which focuses the laser beam you
get a spot about half the size that you
would do in air and at the same time it
can cool the diamond but of course it
makes it harder for Brady to fill one of
the skilled polishers can remove a
carrot of material a day that's 200
mg this machine can do it in 20 minutes
they didn't use this for the rose
Diamond because if something had gone
wrong it would have spoiled everything
when you're polishing by hand you can
see exactly how things are going Marina
is holding a crystal which has been cut
and you can see here it is the two parts
together and then you can see how they
have been cut into two
pieces the advantage is that with this
method you can still get something out
of the little piece you can make a
little diamond and this one will be
processed to make a much larger one
what's really surprising to me at least
at first was that the cut surface is
black and the reason is that the laser
converts the diamond just close to where
it is cutting from the traditional
Diamond structure into graphite you need
a very high power laser far too big to
go in the box so the laser is out here
this long rectangular box and the light
beam then goes down an optic fiber glass
fiber in into the box where you cut it
but what is really important is the
purity of the water so these big boxes
here are continuous purification of the
water and cooling of the water because
the heating of the laser generates a lot
of heat so you have water purification
laser and the actual cutting is here in
the
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box if you'd like to help out the
channel maybe even become a diamond
supporter check out the links on screen
and in the video description and we'll
be back again with more videos very soon
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