Before going through this educational article, lets learn about melee diamonds. In simple terms, melee diamonds are small diamonds that you see around engagement rings, diamond band, tennis bracelets, diamond watches. How small are they? Their sizes go from 0.8mm to 2.70mm in diameter.
With the diamonds as small as a grain of sugar, is there a way of looking the quality of cut of a round brilliant cut melee diamond? Well, there is a way to look at the quality of cut through a 10x, 14x or a 20x loupe and a tweezers. In the coming paragraphs, we have highlighted basic parameters about checking cut-quality of round diamonds in small sizes between 0.90 to 2.70mm.
After carefully holding a melee diamond through tweezer, arrange your loupe and look at the diamond at a 90-degree angle. With the features that we describe in the coming paragraphs, you don’t need a diamond light.
Check for broken cracks
The first step of checking that you have received the high-quality diamonds is to check if the diamonds do not have a broken culet, broken girdle, and out of shape.
Key Points
The second step is to view these small key points while holding the diamond with your tweezer and magnifying it through loop. We are going to demonstrate it in our 2.5mm melee diamond from Luxury Collection. We have sharpened the image for you so that it you can see the facets clearly. All the photos in this blog were taken in a daylight conditions and we have not used diamond light.
Examine Kites
The first key points is notice the formation of a Kite which is also called as Bezel Facet. There will be eight kites (Bezel Facets) in a round brilliant cut melee diamonds. We have highlighted it for you.
Examine Arrows and Kite meeting point
When looking through loop, you should notice the arrow tips touching at the end of kites. Cannot see it clearly? Try to tilt the diamond side-ways. We will try to be as simple as possible, If the kite and arrow is meeting or nearly meeting at the same point in all the factes (8 facets), it is one of the characteristics that the diamond is cut with precision.
You might noitice these formations in bigger sized excellent cut diamonds. However doing it in a small diamond where sizes go as small as a grain of sugar, it takes a lot of hard work and precision.
Checking Pavilion
After checking the arrows and kite points, let’s move forwards to checking the bottom section of a diamond which is also called as pavilion. Now the question arises, if I am seeing a diamond from the top, how can I know that it is well polished at pavilion? There is one basic way.
Look at the centre of the diamond, you will see a circle around the tip which we have highlighted for you in the below picture. A typical excellent cut small diamond should have the highlighted circle formation. It represents that the spear facet (Pavilion Main Facet) is perfectly polished.
It is very important that the diamond is looked at a 90 Degree Angle, only then you will be able to see the circle formation around the tip. You can also see the circular formation once the diamond is studded inside jewellery. Here is a diamond nose pin studded with a 0.04ct Diamond from Luxury Melee Collection at Shining Star.
Here are the images of two different diamonds, now try to identify the above points which we have discussed in the blog.
In this blog, we have showed some basic points a jeweller, diamond jewellery manufacturers and watchmakers should look to check the quality of diamonds they have received. Our article gives a basic idea to check the quality of a melee diamonds quickly from parcels.
What if the parcel size is huge and there are around hundreds of small diamonds in it? You might not have time to check all of it. We would recommend doing a random check in 1:10 ratio. That should give you a better understanding of the quality of diamonds you have received.
Shining Star Diamonds have a quality check team who looks at every diamond individually from 360 degree with an in-depth examination of cut, clarity and colour. You can Order Melee Diamonds directly from manufacturer. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us on info@shiningstardiamonds.com