A visitor’s guide to Surat’s diamond streets
Mahidharpura, Varachha and Katargam: where Surat’s diamonds are traded and cut, and what a visitor can see.
How a solitaire ring is set in our workshop
From a loose stone in a paper parcel to a finished ring in ten days: the steps our four setters follow.
When you choose a stone at our counter on Ghod Dod Road, it goes back into its folded paper parcel with your name written on the outside, and that parcel travels with the ring until the day you collect it. Here is what happens in between.
First, Mukesh, who runs the workshop, checks your ring size on a steel mandrel and the stone’s exact measurements with a gauge. The mount, the gold part that holds the stone, is either cast from our own wax model or hand-built from 18K wire for custom pieces. Casting and cleaning the gold take three to four days, and the mount is weighed before any stone goes in; that weight goes on your bill.
Setting is the slow part. The setter cuts a small notch, called a seat, inside each of the four prongs with a fine burr, so the girdle of the diamond sits level and locked. He presses each prong over the stone with a pusher, working in opposite pairs so the stone does not tilt, then shapes and smooths the prong tips so they will not catch on a dupatta. A 0.50 ct solitaire takes about two hours of setting alone.
Finally the ring is polished, cleaned in a steam jet, and checked under a loupe from every side for movement and gaps. Paresh looks at it last. The stone is shown to you once more, now set, before the ring is packed with its invoice, which lists the stone details and the gold weight separately.
