BEYOND CLEAVAGE PLANES, expertise is required to actually make a diamond sparkle. This is where I ran into difficulty. After cutting diamonds along its cleavage planes, more cuts are made From wiki (to keep my word count down) Splitting a rough diamond along its cleavage planes is only the very first preliminary step. Many more cuts and shaping processes are required to turn that raw piece into a finished gemstone. Subsequent Stages After Cleavage • Sawing: If further division is needed outside of the natural grain, a high-speed diamond-coated saw or laser slices the stone. • Bruting (Girdling): The rough piece is spun on a lathe against another diamond to grind out its basic rounded or fancy outer outline. • Faceting and Polishing: The stone is mounted and ground against a fast-spinning wheel coated with diamond powder (the only material hard enough to cut a diamond) to grind and polish all 57 or 58 individual flat facets needed for maximum brilliance.
on September 30, 2026, 12:00 pm, in reply to "Its an issue of semantics- what I meant was"
IOW, it is absolutely NOT mere semantics here...
You might be interested in the following, also from wiki to back up my statement that it is NOT flaws that make a diamond sparkle, nor are planes of cleavage ever referred to as "flaws"...
Cleavage Planes vs. Flaws
• Cleavage Planes: These are predictable lines of atomic weakness where a diamond can easily split if struck. Every single diamond has them. Diamond cutters actually rely on these planes to cleanly split large rough diamonds during the shaping process.
• Flaws (Inclusions): True flaws are accidental irregularities in the diamond, such as trapped minerals, tiny cracks, or air bubbles (known as inclusions). Unlike cleavage planes, inclusions are random, unique to each stone, and can reduce a diamond's clarity grade.
In a world where you can be anything, choose to be kind.
- Sia September 29, 2026, 7:51 pm