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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 11903368, member: 5833&quot;]I think this is critical information on the spread of electrically powered tools for working gems:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]549893[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Faceting&quot; is the key word.&nbsp; It makes sense that the cutters of diamonds &amp; other precious gem stones would be the first to adopt this new technology: they had the need; they had the money.&nbsp; The faceting of gems is more of a science than an art.</p><p><br /></p><p>I can&#039;t quite see how machines powered by electricity would lead to repeatability in the realm of engraved gems we are discussing, since the placement, angle &amp; depth of engraving would still have been controlled by hand &amp; eye, as they always have been.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is from a 1927 newspaper article on Louis Zoellner, a German gem engraver who settled in Brooklyn, New York.&nbsp; (This is my transcription working from a disordered optical character recognition (OCR) version.)</p><p><br /></p><p><i>A footpower lathe drives the grinder, which is a nib of soft, Swedish iron on the end of a horizontal small rod of the same metal. The nib is -dressed with diamond dust and oil. This mixture wears away both the tool and the stone as the latter is manipulated against the grinding point or surface by the cameo cutter. It is by this grinding process that the cutter produces bas-relief and intaglio facsimiles of persons and of scenes. </i></p><p><br /></p><p>In explaining the delicacy &amp; precision needed, he said:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>The grinding of a wrinkle one-thirty-second of an inch too deeply is sufficient to destroy the piece! </i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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