The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Diamonds, some of them mined in the James Bay Lowlands and cut and polished in Sudbury, shared centre stage in Australia earlier this week when they were launched there by local journalists and celebrities.
Dylan Dix is group executive of Vancouver-based Crossworks Manufacturing Ltd., which operates the diamond processing facility in downtown Sudbury. Dix attended the Sydney soiree at which Forevermark diamonds from the De Beers group of companies were introduced.
Crossworks Manufacturing cuts some of those diamonds for De Beers. Australia is a new market for Crossworks, said Dix, and six new luxury retailers in Sydney and Brisbane are now carrying the Forevermark diamonds.
Some of those diamonds come from De Beers Victor Mine, 90 km west of Attawapiskat. Crossworks has a deal with the Government of Ontario to process 10% of the diamonds mined at Victor in Sudbury, about $35 million of the sparklers a year.
The glitzy event held this week in Australia was a chance to show off the cut developed by Crossworks, a cut that maximizes the brilliance of a square cut diamond, said Dix.
“The point of a diamond is that light enters it, bounces and comes out through the top of it. That maximizes the brilliance that you see sparkling,” he said.
That didn’t always happen with a square cut diamond — at least not until Crossworks developed the ideal square cut.
The company worked with gemmological laboratories and three-dimensional models to trace light to maximize the brilliance of a square cut diamond so it is equal to or more brilliant than the standard round brilliant cut diamond, said Dix.
A younger diamond processing company, Crossworks is making its mark in the diamond world with its new approach to cutting.
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