Ebook Symposium On Diamonds
Mineralogists have always been interested in the use of the diamond for gem purposes. They have also known of the use of carbonado and boart in diamond drill bits. Relatively little attention, however, has been given by them to the very extensive use of the diamond at present in industry as a whole. The great speeding up of the defense programs in this country and Great Britain, and especially the interruption of the supply of wire drawing dies, formerly produced in the low countries and France,have created many difficult problems.
Efforts were accordingly made to supply these deficiencies and also to accelerate the production of diamond-set tools and diamond-bonded wheels which are so vital in precision machining of metallic and other parts. In attempting to solve some of these problems manufacturers have quite naturally sought the advice of mineralogists. Their stock of the necessary technical information is quite limited due to the fact that only recently have a few mineralogists endeavored to correlate the practice of industry with our knowledge of the various physical and structural properties of the diamond. It was therefore thought advisable to arrange a symposium on diamonds to be conducted at the time of the meetings of the Mineralogical Society of America in Boston.
The program of the symposium included seven papers by persons especially competent in the fields assigned to them. The symposium attracted an interested group and provoked much discussion. Because of the large amount of valuable information contained in the papers, it was deemed desirable that they should be published together, and, as lar asfeasible, substantially as presented.
The paper on the production and supply of diamonds by Ball indicated the changes that have taken place in diamond production and that there is increased production in the alluvial fields especially in the Belgian Congo. Ball raised the question as to whether there are significant differences in the properties of the diamonds formed in the pre-Cambrian and those in the Cretaceous diamond pipes of South Africa. The present situation in the gem cutting industry was discussed in detail by Kaplan. The rapidly changing economic conditions naturally exert a great influence on the evaluation of gem diamonds.
The methods used in the production of diamond wire-drawing dies, especially those of exceedingly small diameter, called superfine dies, as described byHerz, are most interesting. fndeed, it is a revelation to the professional mineralogist that it is posslble to pierce a diamond and produce a hole with a diameter of only 0.0003' which conforms precisely to specifications. The efiorts made by the federal government through the Office of Production Management to speed up the manufacture of wire-drawing dies in this country were described by Shayne, who reported that very material and satisfactory progress is being made to supply the need for some of the diamond dies formerly obtained from abroad.
Problems involved in the use of diamonds as tools for machining purposes were reviewed in considerable detail by Slawson, who stressed the need of more adequate scientific information concerning the properties and structural strength of the diamond on the part of the designer and the cutter of these tools. The progress made in this country in the production of bonded diamond wheels was reviewed by Klein. The type of diamond powder which has been found to be satisfactory for this purpose and the uses of diamond bonded wheels were described. The various properties which are important in the selection of diamonds, especially for industrial uses, were discussed by Berman, who advocated the close cooperation of mineralogists in an endeavor to determine satisfactory evaluation criteria.
It should be noted that this was the first symposium on diamonds deal-ing with many of their uses, that is, as a gem and in industry, that has been held. In view of the interest taken in the symposium and the valuable information which has been gathered, it is hoped that a similar program may be arranged for the next annual meeting of the Society.
As chairman of the symposium, I desire to express my sincere appreciation for the enthusiastic response and cooperation of those who were invited to participate in the symposium, and to the officers of the Society for making provision for the session. Our thanks are also due to Mr. Harvey B. Wallace, President of the Wheel Trueing Tool Company of Detroit, and to the Norton Company of Worcester, Massachusetts, whose financial support has made the publication of the papers possible.
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