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How diamonds are made

diamond.jaydip.me

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Re: How diamonds are made

#41

Post by raz32dust »

thrance wrote: post #9
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

Well, that goes for some diamonds. There's another kind that are made by man. In recent years -- over the past four or five years -- there has been an explosion in synthetic diamond production, largely driven by factories in China and India. There are a lot of those factories (spurred by the relatively easy availability of the necessary production-line equipment) and they're all in cutthroat competition with each oth…

I'm often reminded of this classic tweet: > it's actually crazy we figured out how to grow real diamonds that are cheaper and better quality than the real thing and so many people are still like, no thanks the suffering is what makes it special. https://x.com/missmayn/status/1612892354624786444

It's marketing plus perception of how expensive it is. Most of diamond purchases are for engagement rings. Nobody wants to appear cheap. The expense and rarity is the point.

Re: How diamonds are made

#42

Post by ridgeguy »

chistev wrote: post #20
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

Well, that goes for some diamonds. There's another kind that are made by man. In recent years -- over the past four or five years -- there has been an explosion in synthetic diamond production, largely driven by factories in China and India. There are a lot of those factories (spurred by the relatively easy availability of the necessary production-line equipment) and they're all in cutthroat competition with each oth…

Could you distinguish between them if you weren't told?

De Beers sells devices that can distinguish between naturals and CVD synthetics. They're not cheap, but less than ~$80K, IIRC. They do a pretty good job, I've heard >90% success in identifying CVD stones.

Re: How diamonds are made

#43

Post by [deleted] »

yayitswei wrote: post #19
jebarker wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of surprising that diamonds still have appeal as jewelry at all given the rise of lab-grown. I always assumed that people liked them because they were rare and expensive.

Expensive because they were perceived as rare. Classic article: https://priceonomics.com/diamonds-are-bullshit/ Synthetic has pretty much eaten their lunch now.

[deleted]

Re: How diamonds are made

#44

Post by ridgeguy »

De Beers built and has abandoned a very large CVD gem diamond synthesis in Oregon. This was their LightBox operation. They've transferred it to Element Six to rid the parent (De Beers) of the money sink, probably as a touch-up before a sale.

There was a fire sale of LightBox diamonds a few months back. I picked up 3 diamonds, all brilliant cut: 3ct. white, 2ct. pink, 2ct. blue. Total for the three was $600.

Re: How diamonds are made

#45

Post by felooboolooomba »

There was a discovery in 2024 on how to make diamonds under atmospheric pressure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond#Crystallizat...

I thing that method can only produce small crystals, although I think the authors said something along the lines that it would probably be possible to further evolve the method to make them bigger.

Re: How diamonds are made

#46

Post by goodmythical »

Auracle wrote: post #37
thrance wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm often reminded of this classic tweet: > it's actually crazy we figured out how to grow real diamonds that are cheaper and better quality than the real thing and so many people are still like, no thanks the suffering is what makes it special. https://x.com/missmayn/status/1612892354624786444

That’s a silly way to look at it. Surely people can realize that something made through natural processes has more of an appeal than something made in a factory? That said, most of the gems I’ve purchased in my life have been lab grown.

I'd argue that most people appear to prefer manufactured things these days.

No one's wearing clothes their mothers' spun because mothers' see that their children prefer the "higher quality" that is manufactured in factories.

Few choose to spend their time engaged in walking about in nature and choose instead to gaze endlessly at their factory built device that provides them content ground out in other sorts of factories. (content farms etc).

Something made in nature can be more appealing, but it seems to me that the modern preference is not at all for natural things. Hell, even in the diamonds we're talking about. No one's proposing with a natural diamond. People propose with carefully curated, carefully manipulated, and carefully presented diamonds. There's nothing natural about it, really.

Re: How diamonds are made

#47

Post by blueone »

raz32dust wrote: post #41
thrance wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm often reminded of this classic tweet: > it's actually crazy we figured out how to grow real diamonds that are cheaper and better quality than the real thing and so many people are still like, no thanks the suffering is what makes it special. https://x.com/missmayn/status/1612892354624786444

It's marketing plus perception of how expensive it is. Most of diamond purchases are for engagement rings. Nobody wants to appear cheap. The expense and rarity is the point.

> Most of diamond purchases are for engagement rings. Nobody wants to appear cheap. The expense and rarity is the point.

I relate to this. I wasn’t born rich and grew up poor. My parents started a business when I was in my teens, so I worked two jobs, and technically still do because I help them out. My parents instilled a work ethic in me that’s helped me get to where I am in life.

When it came time for me to buy an engagement ring, I went into the process knowing I wanted a natural diamond. My best friend said he could tell the difference between “real” and “fake” and that I shouldn’t be cheap. I didn’t want to be “cheap,” either. I was ready to spend $30,000+ on a diamond.

Instead, I bought a lab grown diamond. I spent $1,600 on a 1.72ct. My buddy thinks it’s real and nobody has even asked whether it’s lab grown or natural. I realized I was spending too much time asking, “why should I get a natural diamond?” The reasons never justified the cost. Spending 18x to 20x more on something that looks exactly the same and serves the same purpose just wasn’t logical to me.

Re: How diamonds are made

#48

Post by etrautmann »

blueone wrote: post #47
raz32dust wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's marketing plus perception of how expensive it is. Most of diamond purchases are for engagement rings. Nobody wants to appear cheap. The expense and rarity is the point.

> Most of diamond purchases are for engagement rings. Nobody wants to appear cheap. The expense and rarity is the point. I relate to this. I wasn’t born rich and grew up poor. My parents started a business when I was in my teens, so I worked two jobs, and technically still do because I help them out. My parents instilled a work ethic in me that’s helped me get to where I am in life. When it came time for me to buy an…

That can be the right call (and is the one I would make) but for situations like this, it may be as much about how you think about something yourself rather than how others view it. If spending more makes it mean something different to you, then that can be a primary function. That being said, blood diamonds are a huge problem, DeBeers is a cartel, and we’d be better off investing our money in other ways that serve a relationship, family, etc.

Re: How diamonds are made

#50

Post by generuso »

99% of all diamonds by mass are industrial diamonds. But they are so inexpensive that they only account for 3% or the revenue.

The jewelry is the remaining 0.8% by mass, and it is split roughly equally between the natural and synthetic stones by mass, but with about 80% of the revenue going to the natural stones.

Here is a very good video showing how large poly-crystalline industrial diamonds are made in the USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o5RprIJmfA

China has their own, slightly different flavor of this machine, the cubic press. These machines are manufactured in thousands and cost about half a million USD each. They are used to produce both industrial and jewelry quality diamonds: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cED0TjwKUDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cnEVb7aPfM

The original machine was invented by a guy at General Electric: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Hall

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