I remember a setter who lost a stone through the window. It was too hot in the workshop and he had opened the window to ventilate. The diamond fell on the roof of the neighbouring warehouse… Ladder, velux, it was an adventure to get it back.
We didn’t do any better, but one day while setting a centre, the stone blew up… and it disappeared. We spent hours looking for it. And then, not a small stone, almost a carat. We only found it months later when we did a major cleaning. It was in a spider’s web!
H., setter.
A staircase story
To be an apprentice is to be a courier. I'm exaggerating but I'm not far from the truth. When you become an arpette, you run around making deliveries. I remember one impossible day. I had started shopping just after a coffee and I hadn't stopped all day. "You go...