side.
The turning wheel can be thrown off the center so as to take certain
parts of the crystal out of the grind in case of dangerous flaws. The
process consists really in roughing out the outlines of the stone as it
is to be, and cuts to dust about fifteen per cent, of the weight lost
in the entire process. Some cutters saw the octahedrons through the
center and then cut a shallow bizel side, round off the corners for the
pavilion and send it to the wheel for the faceting or polishing. By
this method they get over fifty per cent, in cut goods out of the rough
material. The temptation is to cut the top side of the girdle too
shallow for perfect brilliancy, in order to save weight. This was done
frequently in Antwerp, and those shallow top stones are often called "
Antwerp cut."
By
new methods now in vogue, the loss of material in cutting has been
reduced from sixty per cent, to fifty and in some cases forty per
cent., and the work can be done in very much less time. Health
conditions have also been greatly improved by the new methods. In the
old way, setters were menaced with lead poisoning through the continued
handling of lead in the frequent resetting of stones in the dop.
Not
very long ago the setting of stones for the wheel was done in a very
crude way and consumed much time. The diamond was set in a mixture of
lead and tin in a metal cup. A small part of the stone was left exposed
and a mark indicating the grain of the stone made on the solder. This
method required frequent resetting. During the entire process, the
direction of the grain was noted and a mark made for the guidance of
the polisher. Each facet had a name by which the grain and how to
polish it was known. Since diamond cutting has been
