Schlink Attack: Diamond Processing in Namibia

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Diamond Processing in Namibia

I always thought that diamonds were a snooty business, especially when people take out their monocles and tweezers to scrutinize imperfections. They do it all over a swatch of black velvet and bright light, determined to see every angle, every sparkle. Diamond people are the ones who won't touch handrails. They wear Italian fashion, get manicures, and carry an alligator skin binder. That, or their assistant does.

It makes sense though. Historically, Greeks once considered diamonds to be the tear drops of Greek gods. Diamonds symbolize power, courage, virility, and love, and especially reserved for royalty. So when I booked a tour to visit Hard Stone Processing, one of Windhoek's smaller but highly competitive diamond dealers, I imagined all sorts of vain snobbery.

The experience was anything but. Greeted by a bespectacled man named Thomas, he was in jeans and a fleece pullover. We walked past the security guard who left his loaded rifle tilted against the chair, the kind we used to set out for church functions at the school gymnasium. Thomas sat us down on a saggy, white leather sectional and handed us a laminated sheet on the four Cs: cut, carat, color, clarity. He explained that in his processing plant, there are two diamond categories: aggregated, which are boxes of unprocessed diamonds that come from Canada, Botswana, and South Africa, and un-aggregated, Namibian originals. Many people want a home town original, he said.

Namibian diamonds are mostly mined from the sea. They washed up there from the Orange River millions of years ago. At some point they returned to the Namibian desert, starting a diamond frenzy back in 1908. (See the Kolmanskuppe blog post for more of that story). Because of this, Namibia one day will run out of diamonds as there are not significant mines within the earth. But for now, the Namibian diamond companies enjoy a prestige that was once kept as a highly guarded secret.

Thomas pulled us into one of his labs, where a technician named Axel was using an ultra-red light laser to project the rock's image onto a computer screen. He too was wearing jeans and fleece. He manipulated the image with a sophisticated software from Israel that plots points on a rough diamond to make future cuts. The technician turned a 2-D image into 3-D like it was no big deal. Between Axel's eyes and the software, he could pick out inclusions that he'd need to compensate for when the official cuts would be made. All this on a cloudy white rock that was no bigger than the piece of gravel I once got stuck up my nose as a child.

Thomas and Axel introduced us to several of his artisans, many of whom had been there for ten years or more. They wore smart, blue cotton uniforms, warmed by portable heat lamps. A few were in charge of the beginning process called bruting where two diamonds are placed on a spinning axle across each other and spun around to give them a round shape. The computer screens on these babies were fresh out of 1984, just like the Macintosh 128K.

Some artisans were assigned to buff the diamonds, a painstakingly patient job that involves micro adjustments to keep the diamond as symmetrical as possible. They use a what looks like record player to smooth the rough parts, a clamp to hold it, and a monocle to inspect. The whole process takes about one hour per diamond.

The last group we visited were the ones creating facets around the circumference of the diamond. Perched on stools, these employees have to have a steady hand and well developed fine motor skills to make the final marks.The problem is, the facet machine can make the diamonds extremely hot and force them to ping out of their holders. Their solution: they built a netted cage to minimize the fly-zone.

One of the most famous cuts HSP does is the Namibian Sun. It's a patented design of the sun on the Namibian flag, a perfect circle outlined by twelve triangular sunbursts. They only use Namibian diamonds and Namibian artisans, and is only available in Namibian jewelry stores.Their first Namibian Sun masterpiece was donated to the First Lady of Namibia. I am not sure if they meant their current First Lady, Monica Geingob, or the succession of First Ladies (there's only been three). Either way, it's one hell of a souvenir.

Crazy enough, after the diamond receives its finishing touches and is ready for shipment, they are placed back into their original container: a folded piece of paper with a sticker on it. By then the paper is thin and gray with smudgy pencil notes. The folded pieces of paper are boxed up and sent to Belgium for further evaluation and grading. I guess that diamond business isn't 100% snooty after all. After all the care and handling these artists do from computers to lasers to tools, I'd knock the snootiness down by at least 20%.