Diamonds - Cutting Diamonds

In one of my earlier posts I wrote about Crystal Planes. The reason we can cut diamonds, that is break the covalent bond of the atoms to separate from the diamond crystal, is due to its particular structure. It is only possible to break the covalent bond in a specific direction. To illustrate this principle I am going to revert to something we all know and have probably all done. Remember how as children, we would strip the corn seeds off the cob? Well, then you know how easy it is to push the seeds off with your thumb towards an already stripped row. Try and push them the opposite direction, then it becomes more difficult.

Here is an image of part of a black corn cob.

The following image shows three rows of seeds stripped out of the cob and the arrow directions indicate the easiest direction to strip the next row.

The 100 planes on a diamond is like the stripped rows on a corn cob. Cutting perpendicular to the 100 plane when in the proximity of a 110 plane and linear to one of the two 100 planes when in the proximity of the third 100 plane.

So there you have it. Go and cut your diamond! But be warned, to become really proficient in this field of expertise you would need to put in the hours. Here I would like to quote Malcolm Gladwell The 10,000 hours principle comes into play - ouch!