The source of a diamond’s sparkle
Mike Botha is sitting at a small table lit by late-afternoon sun streaming through a window at Stanley Jewelers Gemologist in North Little Rock. The table holds what appears to be a twirling turntable, and Botha is balancing a stylus on its rotating surface.
The stylus holds a diamond in the rough. That turntable is a polishing wheel that spins 1,000 times per minute. Botha is using it to transform a murky little gray rock into a sparkling gemstone. The quality of the cut, he says, releases the beauty of the diamond.
A master diamond cutter, educator, designer and proprietor since 1998 of Embee Diamonds in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada, Botha is in town to discuss his craft, chat about gemstones, and to take a day trip with Laura Stanley and others of Stanley Jewelers Gemologist to Murfreesboro to visit Crater of Diamonds State Park as part of the store’s inaugural Diamond Dig Day.
Tall, slim and professorial in a soft blue dress shirt and tie, bearded Botha charms with his South African accent and affinity for puns—“I’m from South Africa and I live in North America, so I’m African-American,” he says with a smile. He grew up poor, which forced him to amuse himself by playing with words, he quips.
To produce facets on a rough diamond, he demonstrates how the stone is mounted on a pronged stylus, which has settings that allow exact cutting of each facet when placed in contact with a polishing wheel. Several hours are needed to cut each facet before the stone is re-adjusted to cut another, until a brilliant jewel is produced. “A diamond is only as good as its worst facet,” he says.
As he polishes the diamond, he stops occasionally to allow curious visitors to try their hand. “Most diamond cutters polish the surfaces of a diamond with their left hand, pulling the diamond stylus up and down from the wheel,” Botha explains. “The stylus is an extension of your hand. A computer can’t do it as precisely.”
Diamonds—which were known and worn as far back as the 4th Century B.C. in India—need to be polished with the grain, like wood. “It can only be polished in certain directions,” Botha says; diamonds have directional hardness, meaning they are better at withstanding scratching (using another diamond) in certain directions than in others. “The goal is to achieve the maximum amount of light return through the stone’s crown facets.”
Regarding what it takes to become a diamond cutter, a career that began in South Africa and led him to Mauritius, Russia and Canada: “I loved detail as a child. I combined that with math skills to become a diamond cutter. Everything is math.”
His work is very visual, he adds. “That’s where artistry comes in.” And it can’t be hurried. “I can polish four one-carat diamonds per day.”
The work involves seeing the potential in a rough gem, checking for flaws, deciding which faceted shape will best enhance a rough diamond, sawing and cutting the diamond into a specific shape, and creating and polishing the facets. “There are no shortcuts,” Botha says. “You’ve got to get it right. You can’t do it over. Each cutter starts with little diamonds.”
Embee does not sell to the public; it’s a registered supplier to the American Gem Society, Jewelers of America and Diamond Bourse of Canada.
Value, Botha says, is determined by carat weight, color, clarity, cut and cost of production. “We can control the grade on cut, but not on color or clarity,” he says. Each of Embee’s diamonds is accompanied by a Diamond Quality Document that includes a color image of the diamond’s light performance. It quantifies the amount of light reflected and refracted through the diamond’s facets in a mosaic, as determined by highly regarded American Gem Society Laboratories, based in Las Vegas.
The business of diamond cutting has evolved over the years, he says. For those with aspirations of a career in the craft, Botha has this advice: “It’s way more complex today. Out of four people I hire, I have to let three go. You have to do fast, high-quality work.” Requirements include five years’ experience as a diamond cutter or polisher, precise work habits, patience, and being results-oriented, communicative and able to work in a team; remuneration starts at $22.50 per hour (Canadian).
For those who want to buy a diamond, he suggests finding a jeweler who knows what’s what. “A jeweler should be carrying a loupe and should know to look through it with the dominant eye,” Botha says. “If you’re in a store where he doesn’t, walk out.”