Crafted by Infinity Review

Crafted by Infinity is a brand that is manufactured by Infinity Diamonds, a small cutting house with the aim of cutting the highest quality diamonds in the world. Rather than selling their brand themselves, these diamonds are sold exclusively by several dealers. There are some immediate advantages to this. The first that is evident to me is that the quality of the product will likely be higher because of the additional vetting process by the nature of having more parties involved. Second is that the cutting house is more focused on what they specialise in and don’t have other internal pressures to save costs by retaining carat weight on their diamonds. Third is that the brand probably has some kind of unique look about them that can be immediately recognisable.

As I was browsing the Crafted by Infinity website doing this review, I came across an important point they state on their website; that is, cut grading is in its infancy and unlike color or clarity, what is graded excellent today may not be excellent in a few years time. This can have serious implications on the future value of the diamond you purchase. Of course, you don’t have to purchase an Infinity diamond in order to protect yourself, that is what Prosumer Diamonds is here for. Also, there are many reasons why precision cutting and H&A may never become a recognised superior cut grade by the major labs.

Crafted by Infinity makes an effort to market their diamonds as ‘superideal’. They claim that their diamonds are cut to such rare standards that it is more rare than D color and IF clarity. They make a point to say that they cut ‘only’ 1000 diamonds per year. They say that their brand’s best feature is “Flawless Cut”, which is the only cut grade they aspire to. I have no problems with most of these claims, as they are mostly true. For example, I know that superideal cut diamonds are in the top 1% of all diamonds cut and D-E color diamonds make up around 2% of diamonds.

Although there is also no standard for what a flawless cut is, we do know that most H&A diamonds have minor defects. Diamonds that have several minor defects or a single major defects will not be considered H&A by some vendors. So I can tell how strict a H&A vendor is by how many defects they accept as part of their brand.

I spoke with Paul Slegers, Managing Director at Infinity Diamonds, and he explained to me what they mean when they say their diamonds have a flawless cut is that their standard of flawless craftsmanship is that no defects can be seen under 10x magnification. I think this is fair, considering that GIA grades all other aspects of the diamond under the same magnification power. This is a point that I will bear in mind when I come to reviewing their images below.

On the Infinity Diamonds website, you will find a link to their dealers around the world. As I look through the list, the two vendors I have heard of already are High Performance Diamonds by Wink Jones and Diamonds by Lauren by David Friedlander. Basically, each online vendor will carry the same list of Infinity diamonds for the same price, using the same search engine. Please note that only some vendors offer a 5% wire discount and I would recommend High Performance Diamonds because Wink is one of the more active experts and it won’t hurt to see if he will give you an additional Pricescope discount. The search engine is pretty basic and you can only choose between round and princess cuts, the 4C’s, and price. Lets see if there really isn’t any need to have advanced search functions.

I first notice that there are only about 100 diamonds in total, but I managed to find 6 G to H VS2 diamonds to compare.

It takes a little bit more time than usual to get to the useful information on Infinity’s system. The table, depth, pavilion, and crown information is only visible if you click on a button labelled ‘expert details’. Even then, there isn’t any immediate information about the lower girdle length or girdle thickness information and you have to find that information on the AGS lab report yourself. As far as I can tell, all of the Infinity diamonds are graded by AGS, which has both its positives and negatives, as you will know from previous tutorials. One positive is that Infinity provides AGS lab reports that also have the hearts images. But be aware that the ASET images seen in the AGS lab report is generated digitally and contains potential scanning errors such that it is not a true representation of the diamond but rather a good approximation that cannot replace the actual images.

I collected the data from the 6 diamonds and put in them in the table below:

Infinity Table

As the prices and availability of these diamonds will inevitably change, please visit the source directly for the most up-to-date prices. They also have higher quality images.

1.03 Ct. G VS2
1.09 Ct. G VS2
1.18 Ct. G VS2
1.01 Ct. H VS2
1.05 Ct. H VS2
1.09 Ct. H VS2

All of these diamonds have thin to medium girdles, which helps the 1.01 ct stone to reach that 6.5mm mark that is expected of an ideal 1ct diamond. Apart from this, the only things I can comment on is that the table size is generally between 55% and 57% and each one has a total depth under 62%. From the small sample above, it does not seem like there is a specific pavilion angle that these diamonds are cut to like the Brian Gavin Diamonds stones. This is a positive for those who are looking to squeeze the last bit of carat weight into the diameter of the diamond. The theme of spread continues as I look at the crown facets. All of them are between 34 – 34.5 degrees and this means two things – better spread and increased light return under the table.

Finally I have a look at the lower girdle facets and all but 2 of them have a 78% lower girdle length with the other two 75% and 77%. Although probably not representative of all of their diamonds, I can only conclude that there is not a single contrast pattern of the arrows on all Infinity diamonds and you still have that freedom to choose your preference. It also seems like the lower girdle facets are cut so that they are just under 78.5% lower girdle length in order to achieve a hearts pattern that does not have a clear clef in the middle of the hearts.

So far all of the numbers look good right? Well we know that these numbers only tell half the story so lets get into the hearts image and idealscope images to see how the Crafted by Infinity diamonds hold up to their reputation.

Light Performance

Here are the 6 idealscope images.

table of idealscopes
(The above images are courtesy of Infinity Diamonds, used with permission.)

From a light performance point of view, all of the diamonds above seem to look good in their idealscopes with no visible leakage under the table. The light return also seems very balanced throughout the diamond. Although it may seem like there is no leakage in the upper girdles and that there may be some crown-only painting, it is not the case here as I think this is more to do with photography.

actualinfinity    Eightstar
(The use of the above images are courtesy of Infinity Diamonds and Good Old Gold respectively, used with permission.)

For now, you can find the actual picture here and an example of the idealscope from an Eightstar diamond here, scroll 3/4 way down the page.

You can see from the actual image of the 1.03 GVS2 that there is some contrast in the upper girdles, which is eliminated when the girdle is painted. Also compare the idealscope images of the 1.03 GVS2 with the Eightstar diamond that has crown-only painting. You can see that the idealscope images of the Infinity diamonds are clearly not the same.

Optical Symmetry

table of hearts
(This image is courtesy of Infinity Diamonds, used with permission.)

At first glance, the rest of the diamonds seem to have some obvious defects. But it turns out that most of these defects are actually illusions and I would like to thank both John Pollard and Paul Slegers for taking the time and effort to go out of their way to educate me further on the photography issues discussed below. Let me explain with an illustration. The first row of images are computer simulated images of the actual diamond.

camera-tilt
(The above images are courtesy of Infinity Diamonds, used with permission.)

You can see how just 1 degree of tilt in any part of the photography setup (camera lens, body, tripod, table, floor) can create the above illusion. This means we cannot jump to conclusions regarding yaw just because we see some distortion. Please also note that if the setup is perfectly level, the only other thing that can cause this effect is tilt of the table facet. A 1-degree tilt will be caught by the lab symmetry grade, and as Infinity diamonds are all graded excellent symmetry by the AGS, the issue here is not a tilted table facet.

Apart from the first diamond (1.03 GVS2), all the diamonds in my sample seem to be affected by tilted photography. Although this isn’t particularly helpful to us discerning prosumers, it just takes a little more effort to recognise the effect of camera-tilt in photographs. If possible, you should always go and see these diamonds for yourself.

Having studied the above photographs in depth, I have found the best way to detect any yaw that is not an illusion is to find the line of symmetry in the diamond. Once you identify the line of symmetry, you can eliminate the effects of one axis of tilt. Then you can check whether all the V’s are still a bit smaller on one side of the imaginary line of symmetry than the other to determine whether there is tilt in the other axis. Any distortion of the V’s that cannot be explained consistently by camera-tilt will have to be assumed to be yaw, or ‘twist’, which is distortion of the diamond in the azimuth.

Camera-tilt not only causes the illusion of yaw, but also produces what appears to be clefs in between the hearts. You can detect ‘fake’ clefs by noting how close the heart is from the V. If there are hearts in the image that show no clefs but are further from the V, yet hearts that have clefs are closer to the V, then you know that the clefs are illusions from camera-tilt. Looking at the hearts images of the 6 sampled diamonds, I can conclude that all the larger clefs that can be seen are illusions due to camera-tilt.

So now let me get to the minor defects that I see that are not apparently caused by camera-tilt. I will start with the first diamond in the table, which is the 1.03 GVS2. Take a look at the heart at the 12 o’clock position, this heart is slightly smaller than most of the rest. You can see that the gap between the heart and the V is bigger than all the rest apart from the opposing heart. The idealscope tells the story more clearly the larger hotspot in between the second and third arrow is a clear indicator of a smaller heart. In the case of this diamond, the opposing heart appears to be also slightly smaller. Having dealt with camera-tilt above, I would not rule out potential photography issues as the cause of this, but as it stands, this diamond misses the mark as a true H&A in my books.

Now take a look at the fifth diamond, some of the hearts look like they are touching the V’s indicating shorter lower girdles. Correcting for camera-tilt, it seems like the hearts will just barely not touch the V’s. I’m pretty sure that this is the diamond with the 75% lower girdle length as stated on the certificate. Although not a cause for rejection, this may be a consideration for you if you are a H&A purist. Finally, although not a cut issue, I also noticed an inclusion that reflects around the pavilion in the third diamond, what is known as a ‘reflector’. This is not good for a VS2 diamond and you can definitely find better.

Having considered all the information, and inspecting the hearts images of all 6 diamonds thoroughly, I have come to the conclusion that notwithstanding the camera-tilt, it is apparent to me that at least 5 out of the 6 diamonds are cut to the highest level of precision and are deserving of the super-ideal qualification.

Price

The price of a Crafted by Infinity diamond carries a price premium that is expected of a top-of-the-line super-ideal H&A brand. A comparison with the online vendors that move far greater volumes of diamonds just doesn’t seem fair. Remember that Infinity Diamonds primarily targets showroom clientele and viewed in this light, their prices are justified and even provide greater value than other popular brands (Tiffany, Cartier, Hearts on Fire, etc). I’m just glad to see that outfits like High Performance Diamonds are still providing an opportunity for online consumers access to these diamonds.

Value Added Services

As Crafted by Infinity is not a retailer themselves, each of their dealers will have their own value added services so I will not go over them here. There is one interesting value add that Crafted by Infinity provides and that is their ‘Meet the Cutter’ events. This gives a chance for any Infinity owner to go to any one of their dealers who is holding one of these events where they get to meet the person who cuts their diamond. Diamond prosumers should find this an interesting and valuable chance to learn about diamonds so if you’re lucky enough to be in the area of one of the dealers, then this may be something worth your consideration.

Conclusion

I had a great time doing this review, not only did I learn a lot more about Infinity Diamonds, which I hope I have successfully conveyed on to you, I also learned a lot about how market trends and photography has changed the diamond industry.

I found that the diamonds I reviewed had excellent spread for a well-cut diamond so you will get a good sized diamond for the stated carat weight. If spread is important to you and you want a super-ideal diamond then Crafted by Infinity may be a good option for you. The diamonds I reviewed also tend toward the brighter side of my recommended range of proportions rather than the dispersive side. Their excellent spread is due to their attention given to the thin to medium girdles, close to 56% table percentage, 40.7-degree pavilion angles, and close to 34-degree crown angles.

The only problem that I identified with Infinity Diamonds is with their photography setup, as the camera-tilt makes it harder for consumers to make online purchasing decisions. If you need help interpreting any of their images online, please feel free to send me an email and I will try my best to help you out. I hope that Infinity Diamonds will be able to one day improve the quality of their photography.

I want my readers to appreciate the investment that is needed in order to produce high quality pictures and that it can be a burden on a small cutting house such as Infinity Diamonds. If you have any concerns regarding optical symmetry, Wink Jones at High Performance Diamonds, who carries the Crafted by Infinity brand has a ‘See It To Believe It” (SITBI) program where you can see the diamond for yourself before you buy it.

The bottom line is that if you’re looking to seek comfort from a reputable brand name who produces some of the best looking precision cut diamonds in the world, then you should consider a diamond that is Crafted by Infinity. I recommend those seeking a Crafted by Infinity diamond to demand nothing short of top-of-the-line optical symmetry that is expected of their cutting house and brand.

Fancy Color Diamonds and Color Entrapment

Welcome to the second tutorial in Prosumer Level 3 on Fancy Colored Diamonds (FCDs) and color entrapment in colorless diamonds. This tutorial is meant for you to understand more about diamond color and to introduce you to the world of fancy colored diamonds. Even if you are not in the market for a fancy colored diamond, it may still be useful for you to understand a bit about how they are cut because some of the concepts here also apply to colorless diamonds.

Fancy Yellow Color Diamonds
In my basics tutorial on diamond color, I told you how colorless diamonds are graded from D-Z, and they are also known as the Cape series diamonds. I also told you how most of these yellow diamonds are best described to have a yellow tint. But toward the end of this scale, the diamonds begin to have obvious yellow body color. You will also be aware that the price per carat is lower the lower you go down in the D-Z scale. But fancy yellow colored diamonds carry a significant price premium over colorless diamonds. This opens up the possibility of bargain hunting for colored diamonds that are not ‘true’ fancy colored diamonds, but is it really possible? The yellow color in fancy yellow diamonds are graded as follows:

Fancy Light Yellow
Fancy Yellow
Fancy Intense Yellow
Fancy Dark Yellow
Fancy Deep Yellow
Fancy Vivid Yellow
You may be wondering what the difference is between low-end Cape series diamonds and the Fancy Light Yellow (FLY).

Well low-end Cape series diamonds are actually classified in their own semi-official ranges of what is known as faint to light. Just like DEF is known as the colorless range, KLM is the faint yellow range, N to R is the very light yellow range, and S to Z is the light yellow range. But the ‘fancy’ designation in FCDs mean that the body color should be more evenly spread out through the diamond in comparison to a low color Cape series.

Fancy Color Diamonds
The most important thing a prosumer needs to know is that FCDs do not receive a cut grade like a colorless diamond. The reason is because fancy colored diamonds are graded and valued primarily by the intensity of their color from the face-up view. The good thing about FCDs is because although cutting them is more complicated than colorless rounds, for the consumer it is actually simpler; especially if you’re considering fancy yellow and above intensities. The only considerations for a consumer is whether they like the color, then ensuring the color is even and as stated on the certificate, and finally an understanding of how rare the particular stone is will help you understand its value. For example, natural green, green-blue, and pink diamonds are some of the rarest fancy colored diamonds and command the highest premium.

The colorless round brilliant cutting philosophies where perfect symmetry and polish are positives do not apply for fancy colored diamonds. The concepts of brilliance where optimising for brightness and contrast also do not necessarily apply. In fact, contrast in a FCD can be seen as a negative because it may be detrimental to the overall evenness of the body color. Reducing contrast is the first method of color retention in fancy color diamonds.

Just because a FCD might not have perfect symmetry and polish, this does not imply that FCDs are cut imprecisely; in fact quite the opposite is true. Cutting a FCD is much more of an art than cutting a colorless diamond. The reason is because sometimes the diamond may exhibit a certain overall intensity but are more intense in some parts of the diamond and less intense in other parts. The reason is because the impurities (nitrogen in the case of yellow diamonds) have not been introduced evenly as the diamond crystal was growing. This is known as color zoning, which also explains the faint to light range of diamonds in the Cape series.

Transforming Cape to Fancy Color Diamonds

Sometimes, low colored Cape series diamonds can make good candidates to be transformed into FLY diamonds given the right cut. It is highly debatable whether transforming these lower value diamonds into highly sought after fancy diamonds is ethical, especially as it can be seen to be masking the fact that these diamonds are not ‘true’ fancy color diamonds. Should a diamond which has been made into a FLY from a low colored Cape be as valuable as a ‘true’ FLY? This is a question best answered by the market. That, however, assumes that consumers can make an informed decision after given all the facts. Whether transforming a diamond into a FLY or improving the appearance of a FCD by making the diamond color even throughout the diamond, the cutter has to employ color retention techniques.

Another method to retain color in a diamond is to cut the diamond in a way that the light entering the diamond bounces around more times before leaving the diamond. As a general concept, the more times light bounces (undergoes total internal reflection), the more color is retained in the diamond. This is known as color entrapment.

This is the reason why certain shapes are more favourable for color and why most fancy color diamonds are cut to fancy shapes rather than a round brilliant, which happens to have the best performance in terms of brilliance but is actually the worst shape for color retention. The way fancy shaped diamonds accomplish more internal reflections is because of the extra crown facets and extra pavilion facets that some have over the round brilliant.

How Color Retention Affects Cape Series Diamonds

In order to think how color retention can affect Cape series diamonds, we can draw on some of the concepts we already know about brilliance and turn them upside down. For example, we know that relatively shallower pavilions increase contrast and it turns out that steeper pavilions help color retention. This would also suggest that crown-only painting of the girdles and shorter star lengths, which decrease contrast in a diamond, will have the same effect. The point to remember is that if you want your diamond to appear whiter, then that is more of a reason to optimise for brilliance.

In Cape series diamonds, color entrapment is a negative because if you are looking at J color diamonds, you probably want it to face-up whiter to ensure it stays in the near-colorless range rather than falling into the faint color range. You should be aware that a steeper pavilion angle will lead to increased color that is visible from the face-up view meaning that J will look more yellow.

It has been suggested that you will begin to see the effects of color entrapment with pavilion angles over 41 degrees. Color entrapment begins to be an issue for diamonds with tight tolerances at a pavilion angle of 41.4 degrees, with the effects becoming more obvious when the pavilion angle is 41.6 degrees and over. The reason is because the light entering the diamond through the girdle is likely to reflect internally many times off of opposing crowns and pavilion facets. Logically, the problems are worsened when more light enters the diamond through a thicker girdle. Face up, it has been suggested that the color will be most likely seen around leakage areas (ie. in the upper girdles and under the table). Also, for fancy shaped Cape series diamonds, the effect of color entrapment is also more evident than in rounds as the previous discussion would suggest. For example, in a princess cut, the corners of the diamond is more likely to experience color entrapment issues.

Please note that a lot of this depends on the color distribution in the particular diamond in the first place. Remember that diamonds that look differently can receive the same color grade because color is graded on color depth, which is a combination of tone and saturation. At the end of the day, all this does for us prosumers is that it raises additional concerns when picking diamonds in the hopes that they will appear whiter than their stated grade. You can only verify the existence or non-existence of the effect of color entrapment upon a visual inspection, and even then only if you have comparison stones available and have a pair of color sensitive eyes.

Maximising the Value of Your Diamond

Welcome to Prosumer Level 3! Congratulations, I already consider you a diamond prosumer. My aim in this tutorial is to discuss how to find out what is the best value when purchasing diamonds. You should know by now that this is highly influenced by personal preference. But what I have found is that many people honestly don’t have a personal preference or prefer a balanced diamond. Whichever type of diamond character you end up choosing, you ought to want to get the best value for your money. That means getting the most effect for what you’re going for, whether for size, light return, fire, or scintillation, or if you’re looking for a balance, still getting the biggest diamond that is possible for your given budget. I also want to remind you of the importance of tight variances that can only be guaranteed with precision diamond cutting. An H&A diamond is only one possible result of a precision cut diamond.

In my how to pick a diamond tutorial, I recommended that you refer to reference sizes for a diamond. But that only really works well if you’re looking for 0.25, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 cts, etc. It is less useful if you’re looking at a 1.17 ct diamond. Those charts also make assumptions about the depth and girdle thickness of the diamond. At this stage, I want you to forget those charts; we will probably rarely ever use them again.

Optimising a balanced diamond

Optimising a balanced diamond is the simplest, because it covers the most general points that you will want to consider when you optimise for any other type of diamond. The first thing you want to look at is the girdle thickness. The reason we want thin, thin-to-medium, or medium girdles is because these are relatively thin girdles without it being too thin and therefore prone to chipping. The difference between a thin and a medium girdle is around 1% girdle thickness. A medium girdle will look like a thin line and a thin girdle will just look like an edge. I think preference can dictate whether you want a thin or medium girdle, but lets just say that a good balance is therefore a thin-to-medium girdle.

Because the girdle is the widest part of the diamond, a 1% increase in the thickness leaders to a more than 1% increase in its weight. However, it does not increase the diameter of the diamond at all. So a thicker girdle is always bad for spread. Factor this into the cost of the diamond. In my opinion, the weight going into the girdle is less valuable so a 1.04 ct diamond with a slightly-thick girdle should not be that much expensive than a 1.00 ct diamond with a thin-to-medium girdle.

The next thing is the pavilion angle. Again, preferences aside, is there any reason why we would ever want a pavilion angle over 41 degrees? The only reason an end-user would ever want a 41 degree pavilion angle is that it compensates for shallow crown angles. But we know that 41-degree pavilion angle is at risk of leakage. The reason why a cutter will want to cut as steep a pavilion angle as possible without leakage is that this maximises their rough yield. But you have to think that as an end-user, what is good for the cutter may not necessarily be good for you. We also know that a 40.4 degree pavilion angle will have obstruction problems. Therefore the shallowest pavilion angle on the certificate is 40.6 degrees and you want to ensure that the actual pavilion angle is over 40.5 degrees. If you’re risk adverse then it is probably safer to get a 40.8-degree pavilion angle on the certificate.

With the general stuff out of the way, lets put everything we’ve learned so far together and talk about how to optimise each of the types of diamond that I mentioned at the beginning of the article.

Optimising for Size

Optimising for size is fun! It involves thinking about what are the reasonable hits we can take on other aspects in order to increase the diameter of the diamond. We’ve already talked about the girdle and the pavilion. Applying what we have talked about we are looking at a thin-to-medium girdle with a tight 40.5 degree pavilion angle. Can you guess why you wouldn’t want a thin girdle here?

Another way we can increase spread is to look for the lowest crown height possible. However, there is no such thing as a single ‘lowest crown height’ per say, because this varies with the size of the diamond. Rather, we want to find the smallest table coupled with shallowest crown angle to produce the lowest crown height possible for any particular diamond. I’ve said before its hard to find modern round brilliants with very small tables but lets think hypothetically.

I will begin with a 50% table, which is the smallest I think you’re going to be able to find. We are outside the range of GIA excellent cuts here, which will also save you some money. The shallowest crown angle that will stay within a very good cut grade when coupled with a 40.5-degree pavilion angle is a 31.5-degree crown angle. Because we have shallow crowns and pavilions, you may want to consider longer lower girdles (80%) so that they don’t leak before the pavilions. With longer lower girdles and a shallow pavilion, it would mean that the stars will have to be shorter, but not too short that there will likely be painting of the girdles, which add unnecessary weight. That means you should aim for 50% stars. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the reason you don’t want a thin girdle is because you also have quite shallow crowns so it may be more prone to chipping.

Lets sum it all up now:

The specs would be:

Thin to medium girdle
50% table
31.5 degree crown angle
40.5 degree pavilion angle
80% lower girdles
50% stars
40-43 degree upper girdles
No painting or digging!
Optimising for Brilliance

Optimising for brilliance is a tricky thing because we know that brilliance contains the subjective component of contrast patterns. But regardless of the personal preferences as to contrast, there is a basic requirement of optimising brilliance, which is to minimise unwanted light leakage. The factors that affect personal preference the most is whether you want more or less contrast in the upper girdles. This will determine whether you prefer any crown-only painting. Whether there is painting will also determine the star facet length.

As for the rest of the facets, there are several ways to go about it. First you can consider a large table to let a lot of light in, something around 60%. This should be coupled with a tight 41-degree pavilion angle that will increase the amount of tilt required before you see a fish-eye and to some extent manage the size of the table reflection. We are actually trying to reduce dispersion by making the crown facets smaller so aim for a lower crown height. But we don’t want to go quite as low as optimising for size so I would recommend pairing with a 32-degree crown angle to remain within GIA excellent cut grade.

If you go for a painted girdle, it will make the diamond brighter around the edges. But if you do this, the diamond will be noticeably darker in the bottom half of the diamond when you look at it from the face-up view. A painted girdle is usually accompanied by shorter stars, and this will mean less obstruction and an overall brighter diamond albeit with less contrast. You will then be free to choose between 75% or 80% lower girdles. For my personal tastes, I wouldn’t go with too long of a lower girdle because I personally don’t think thin arrows look good with a large table/table reflection. Try not to get too long of star facets, I would stick to around 50% and it also plays well to go with shorter lower girdles (around 75%) to avoid too much head shadow/body obstruction.

Therefore the specs for a brilliance optimised diamond without painting is:

Thin-to-medium girdle
60% table
32 degree crown angle
41 degree pavilion angle
75% lower girdles
50% stars
40-43 degree upper girdles
no painting
The specs for a brilliance optimised diamond with painting is:

Thin-to-medium girdle
60% table
32 degree crown angle
41 degree pavilion angle
75 – 80% lower girdles
45% stars
<40 degree upper girdles
crown-only painting
Optimising for Fire

A few notes before we optimise for fire. Just remember that a diamond’s fire is more affected by lighting than any other factor. Also, diamond simulants have more fire than diamond but they sometimes have too much fire so that it looks too ‘disco-ball’ like. Finally, if you really like fire, there is such thing as ‘fire polish’ that you can apply to the diamond to increase fire in a diamond. More on this in a later tutorial.

The first thing to do in optimising fire is to maximise the size of the crown facets. You do this by having a really high crown, and you get that by having a small table coupled with a steep crown. I would recommend a 53% table coupled with a 36-degree crown angle, which keeps you within GIA excellent cut. You want a slightly shallower pavilion (around 40.6 degrees) to compensate for the steeper crown angle.

Now we get into preference for either pin-fire flash or bolder flashes. If you prefer pin-fire flash and to maximise scintillation, then you will want at least 80% lower girdles and perhaps even closer to 85%. With such thin arrows, you may want more of them and that’s when I would refer you to the Solasfera cut. Be slightly careful with your choice for stars here. If you have very long lower girdles (85%) then you should probably stick to 50% stars. If you have closer to 80% lower girdles, then 55% stars will produce larger hotspots adding more pin-fire flash.

For a fire-optimised diamond, you don’t want any painting of the diamond as that reduces contrast. The leakage in the upper girdles from an unpainted diamond that you see in the face-up view will return flashes of light adding to scintillation when the diamond is rocked.

If instead you like bold flashes, you will want shorter lower girdles (75% or less). Even if you have decided on bold flashes, you can still make a decision about whether you want to only have bold flash or mix it in with some pin flash as well for a more balanced appearance. If you want a balance of pin and bold flash, you will want stars that are at least 55%. Just make sure the upper girdles are not so steep that they begin to leak when they are over 43-degrees. If you want to focus only on bold flash, you can stick to 50% stars and also consider painted girdles. This will reduce the prevalence of hotspots the contrast in the edges of the diamond so that your attention will be focused on the larger events of flashes coming from the arrows.

To summarise, the specs for a pin-fire flash/scintillation optimised diamond are:

Thin-to-medium girdle
53% table
36 degree crown angle
40.6 degree pavilion angle
80% lower girdles with 55% stars; or
85% lower girdles with 50% stars
40-43 degree upper girdles
no painting
The specs for a balanced-fire flash optimised diamond are:

Thin-to-medium girdle
53% table
36 degree crown angle
40.6 degree pavilion angle
<75% lower girdles
55% stars
40-43 degree upper girdles
no painting
The specs for an bold-fire flash only optimised diamond are:

Thin-to-medium girdle
53% table
36 degree crown angle
40.6 degree pavilion angle
<75% lower girdles
50% stars
<40 degree upper girdles
crown-only painting
Optimising a Balanced Diamond

To complete this tutorial, these are the full specs for what I consider to be an overall balanced diamond. The balanced diamond achieves a nice balance between spread, brightness, contrast, pin and bold fire flash, and scintillation.

Thin-to-medium girdle
57% table
34.5 degree crown angle
40.8 degree pavilion angle
75% lower girdles
55% stars
40-43 degree upper girdles
no painting

Pricescope Rockytalky Review: Aprilbaby

It’s time for another Pricescope Rockytalky review!

I noticed yet another recent thread that had an interesting question about Whiteflash ACAs. The specific question was whether all ACAs are made exactly the same and would PSers ever recommend against one? The question was raised because of concerns that the ASETs and Idealscope of some ACAs, in particular those under half a carat, varied a bit and that some idealscope also showed what appears to be leakage.

You can read the original thread here.

The short answer would be no they are not all made exactly the same and Whiteflash does not claim that they are. The simple reason being that there are always going to be borderline cases, and you would also expect the rare but unavoidable human error. The general answer is that yes, if you purchase a Whiteflash ACA, it is very highly likely that you will be a satisfied customer. The full answer, however, would require some knowledge of how a diamond is cut, which is going to be the topic of a future tutorial. For now, it is sufficient to know that diamonds cut to super-ideal standards are precision cut, and the cutter is usually able to cut the diamond very precisely. Also, if you’ve read all my tutorials, you will know precisely how each facet affects the appearance of diamond. Equipped with this knowledge, you too would expect there to always be an explanation for what you can see in any image of a diamond whether actual or light performance related.

In the thread, three ACAs in total were brought up for discussion. The first two were compared first:

Diamond 1
http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2684406.htm

Diamond 2
http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2982215.htm

The first question about these two diamonds was whether Diamond 1 had a better idealscope than Diamond 2. The person who posed the question thought that Diamond 2’s ASET was more dull and the idealscope was more grey and less vibrant. The more experienced PSers handled the question well noting that you should not be comparing the color saturation of different ASET images with each other.

However, no one seemed to look more carefully to see what else could explain the differences seen. Without even looking at the idealscope, you can see that Diamond 1 has more contrast around the edge of the diamond. This is because Diamond 2 has slightly painted girdles. This is of course verified by looking at the idealscope and what I believe is the proper answer to why the idealscope appeared more grey is actually because it has more deep reds in the upper girdles. It is often difficult for untrained eyes to distinguish dark-greys and deep reds in idealscope images. The ASET also tells the same story and you can see it manifesting as ever slightly increased green areas, lengthening in the upper girdles and thickening around the stars facets.

Does the existence of slight painting change what I think about ACAs? Certainly not, because it still exuberates a familiar characteristic contrast pattern under the table facets. You can think of slight painting as a sprinkle or topping to the diamond that you can choose whether to go with or without. Be minded that the reason slight painting is used here is most likely to ensure the diamond is over 1ct in weight.

The next comparison was between Diamond 2 and Diamond 3 below:

Diamond 3
http://www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-2949573.htm

Interestingly, Diamond 3 is a good example of why an ASET tells a clearer story than the idealscope. Untrained eyes are not likely to notice the widening of the leakage areas around the edges indicating steeper upper girdles in an idealscope image. The upper girdles are not so steep that they cause obvious leakage, but under the ASET, it is clear that at least 10 of the 16 upper girdles are steep enough to be returning light from the periphery (green on the ASET). A further inspection of this diamond’s proportions confirms that this is not what I am used to seeing in a typical ACA. Because of this, I had a quick peruse of some of the other ACAs under half a carat and I noticed that there is more variation in proportions in these smaller diamonds than there are for diamonds 1ct and above.

Now I can see how these diamonds still make it to the ACA level, after all, they are still well within my recommended proportions, with precision cut H&A, and near 100% light return. The subtlety here is that where the light return is coming from in the upper girdles is more from the periphery rather than from around a 45 degree angle, the latter in my opinion is preferable. This diamond does not have the best edge to edge light performance and is likely to pick up all sorts of color reflecting from its surroundings.

The conclusion of this review is that most ACAs are made the same, but there are some borderline cases, which I personally would avoid if I were purchasing an ACA. If you are looking for an ACA and have any doubts/questions. Please feel free to send me an email or leave a comment.