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.
Grains
I was fourteen when I started going to my uncle's workshop. He was a setter, like most of the guys in my family. I used to come and see him on Wednesday afternoons. He would tell me to sit next to him and I would watch him. After a...