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Ch. 2: Adamas, Diamond

Ch. 2: Adamas, Diamond Page of 377 Ch. 2: Adamas, Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
INVENTION OF DIAMOND-CUTTING.             109
preciable dimensions and value.* The next process is the rough-sketching of the required form, appropriately termed in French brutage, and also égriser, " to sober ;" a jocular term at first, now become technical; hence êgrisée, the French name for the diamond-dust. Two Diamonds of nearly equal size are cemented each in a handle, and rubbed one against the other until one facet of equal extent is mutually ground out of the surface of each. The powder as it falls is received in a box, and becomes the essential agent in the next operation. This is the polishing, performed upon a disk of soft iron about a foot in diameter, made to revolve most rapidly (thirty times in a second) in a horizontal plane, and having its surface covered with the diamond-dust J mixed with the finest olive-oil. The Diamond is embedded in soft solder in a socket at the end of an iron arm, leaving but so much of its surface exposed as is required to be acted upon. By placing weights on the extremity f of this arm (that touching the wheel), it will be seen that the necessary degree of pressure is obtained for keeping the stone tight against the revolving disk below. In this way two or three Diamonds are operated upon at one time, the workman repeatedly examining each; and when a facet is completed he extracts 'the stone, and rebeds it in the solder so as to present another portion to the action of the cutting surface. All this is done entirely by the eye ; for it is by constant practice that the secret is learnt of cutting the numerous facets with such invariable
Ch. 2: Adamas, Diamond Page of 377 Ch. 2: Adamas, Diamond
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