Diamonds are very precious. This is partly due to the long process a diamond worker must run through. It starts with the rough diamond, which often looks like an ordinary piece of glass. The first step is to cleave the diamond into two or more pieces. This can be done by sawing, splitting or laser technique. For sawing a phosphor bronze saw is needed, covered with diamond dust and oil. Diamond is so hard, that it can only be cut with diamond. Then the shape of the diamond is created by bruting and girdling, for instance pear shape, marquise or brilliant. By polishing the well-known surfaces are applied to the diamond: the facets. An important job, as the price that a diamond will yield, is partly determined by its proportions. The study of the grain and the crystallisation of the diamond leads to the choice of the shape it will get. Instead of cutting diamonds manually, computers and lasers are widely used nowadays. The drawback of these techniques is that they take less account for the natural nerves of the stone.
