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A diamond cutter based in Prince Albert believes he has developed a new method of setting diamonds that will revolutionize the jewelry industry.
Ten years ago, Mike Botha and New Zealand jeweller Ian Douglas set out to develop a new design to hold solitaire diamonds without the use of prongs and claws.
A task many in the industry thought was impossible came to life in December with the first line of Floeting Diamond hitting the open market.
“It’s getting very good traction,” said Botha, inventor and CEO of Embee Diamond Technologies. “This is kind of ground-breaking what we’re doing. We’re very hopeful that will pave the way for diamonds to be set in the future.”
It’s considered the first innovation in diamond setting since the standard six-claw setting was invented in 1886.
Botha — the creator of Sirius Star, the world’s brightest diamond — said it wasn’t until an “epiphany” that the idea came to him on how to bring their vision to life.
The technology behind Floeting Diamond is the space-age titanium alloy and a specialized laser.
“I came up with a concept that if you cut a microgroove in the diamond and use titanium as a collet, (it) would snap onto the groove and hold the diamond from the backside,” said Botha.
“We also had to place it in such a position that wouldn’t impede the light flow of the diamond. We want to make sure we hold it securely, but we also didn’t want to detract from the beauty of the diamond.”
Not only does the new method hold the diamond securely, it was proven to be 20 per cent stronger than the traditional metal claw setting.
The metal claw-set diamond in rings came loose after 298 drops onto a hard surface from a one-metre height while the Floeting Diamond remained secure after several thousand drops.
The name Floeting Diamond is of Norwegian origin, explained Botha.
“It also (feeds) on the notion that (with) ice floes, ice just floats in the water,” he said. “This is the whole idea why its spelled like that.”
The benefits of the design can be appreciated by people in cold-weather climates where there are no clasps or claws to get caught in clothing.