Diamonds are forever!

Diamonds are forever!

Marilyn Monroe sings 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend'
in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949)

What to talk of the country, one cannot count me among the rich, famous or achievers within even our own family. But there are times when I get the unexpected opportunity to see or experience some things for which I feel lucky and grateful.

Some of you have pointed out the names of foods I missed out on, during my recent visit to Surat. Sadly, that ship has sailed now and I am not getting another chance to try them ever. You might consider that my bad luck which is partly true, but the Surat visit would forever be etched into my memory because of another reason - I got a chance to visit a diamond jewellery-making factory.

I checked with some friends who said they had not had the luck of visiting such a place, so I thought of sharing my experience. Those among you, who have seen something similar, please ignore and forgive my indulgence.

Marilyn Monroe’s song ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ does not cut much ice with me, nor do the ideas of buying, collecting, wearing or showing off jewellery entice me, so it was with a very normal heartbeat and no preconceived notions, that I entered the Golden Carat factory in the Gujarat Hira Bourse, Surat.

Instead, what first caught my eye was a tidy pantry containing huge iron mesh baskets of fresh vegetables and sacks of grain and dal, and the clean, stainless steel modern kitchen. Nearly 600 members of the staff are offered free breakfast and lunch six days a week.

Left: Roti making machine-Feed in  flour and water, makes 600 rotis per hour 
Right: Pressure cooker for cooking 200 kgs of dal at one time.

Disclaimer: This is not a technical write-up. This is my, a layperson’s, understanding of the whole process of making diamond jewellery. I might miss a point or explain too much, so overwhelmed I am by the long-drawn, very fine, precise work that goes into making each article of diamond jewellery which is much in trend nowadays.

Director Jitendra Jodhani, and senior executive Jaydeep Joshi gave us a guided tour, making it easier for me to understand the process. For the sake of convenience, I am dividing the several-day long process into six quick major steps.

Design: Every product needs a design to be followed. In diamond jewellery, the aim is to have a unique, sometimes customized piece or line sold by a jeweller. Gone are the days of handmade designs, qualified designers now use computers to shape dreams into images of real-world pieces. These three-dimensional models using computer-aided design (CAD) programmes are guides for making the real piece with all angles, carvings, filigree work alongwith the size and shape of the piece of intricate jewellery and the precious stones to be used.  

Rubber mould

A resin model of the design is then made using 3D Rapid Prototyping system (RPT).

Mould making: Perhaps the most important step; once the design is finalized, rubber moulds are made of the piece. An injection machine then pours wax into this mould producing wax moulds. These wax moulds are very delicate and handled with a great deal of care. Several parts or pieces of the wax replica of many articles are soldered together for casting later. Provided with a stem, these pieces are called ‘trees’. 

A large team of workers sits, each peering through the lens of his/her own microscope, at every single tree to inspect for any flaws in designs, cleaning of space for holes, filigree or other details.

 Left: Soldering pieces on wax tree Right: Tree copied in alloy of metals to help understand. White cylinders at the back are gypsum casts

Casting The wax tree is put in a flask and gypsum poured into it. The gypsum solidifies in it. The cylinder is then fed into a machine so that the wax melts and in its place is left a cavity of the design with the minutest details of the piece, to be made in yellow metal.

Gold and diamonds: Meanwhile, other teams have already bought and brought gold to be used, from the exchange or banks and sourced the diamonds. These carbon pieces have been inspected by gemologists for their quality, shape and cut, at other venues of the company and then segregated according to size, cut and value. We were told that the factory uses 14 or 18 carat gold for making diamond jewellery and only their foreign buyers ask for diamonds in silver.

Gold melted at a little above 1000 degrees C is then poured into the gypsum cavity. When cool, the cylinder is broken to take out the gold structure of the piece. But this is only halfway through the process.

Grinding, polishing: After this starts the intense work of grinding and buffing with various sizes and types of wheels spinning inside a glass case at the base of which all gold dust flying off, gets collected. Grinding removes the nubs and nibs of gold and smoothens all surfaces of the raw piece.

It is then polished because after setting of the diamond it is impossible to work on the underside area of the diamond.

Polishing the underside 

Pieces to be linked together to make a necklace

Setting: Then comes the work of setting the diamonds. Looking through a lens, the setter fixes each tiny diamond into its hole/prong/channel by hand. All pieces are then soldered and assembled to make a complete piece of jewellery.

These articles are given their shape using oxy-hydro torches (these torches are safer than LPG torches), in a separate wing. Like shoes are casts on lasts, choker and stiff necklaces sit on similar bases to form the shape we see them in, finally.

The piece goes for more polishing with grinding/spinning wheels till it is one flawless item.

Quality Control: Now comes the final test. The piece is passed on to the quality control experts to ensure that the final product complies with the quality criteria of the company as well as the requirements of the customer.

Even wax trees go through quality control

You might be curious about one very important factor in the process – the gold dust/powder lost during the process.

Several steps are taken to recover the gold thus lost. A lot of fine gold powder sticks to the hands, body, or clothes of the workers. Therefore, every Golden Carat worker wears a uniform, a cap and a mask which are cleaned every day to retrieve the gold particles. The gold dust in the air/atmosphere is also collected through suction ducts which then goes in a room where gold is retrieved through chemical process. Even the water the workers use to wash their hands is collected for recovering the precious metal. Following these systems, several kilos of gold are retrieved every month.

Recovery of gold  

Our guides said the company is careful - the plant is so constructed that workers work in natural light provided by special lamps and breathe in clean air.

Fortunately for Mani, I am not a woman who loves gold and diamonds, so naturally I was not tempted to open my wallet or ask him to do so during this visit, but I now agree with an anonymous buyer from Punjab who, Mr Jodhani said, had remarked, “It always pricks to pay ‘making charges’ but now that I know the hard work, time, energy and money  that go into making diamond jewellery, I might now never ask for deducting it.”

                                                                              -Anupama S Mani