Michelle DaCruz
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 17/02) - Every time Roy Doolittle is on the job he exercises acute concentration. A sleepless night could easily lead to a costly mistake.

Roy Doolittle of Deton'cho Diamonds Inc. won a silver medal for diamond cutting at the Skills Canada competition last month in Yellowknife. He displayed his polishing prowess at the Gallery of the Midnight Sun in Old Town. - Michelle DaCruz/NNSL photo

"It doesn't take much to make a $10,000 diamond, worth $5,000," said Doolittle. "When you cut it away, you can't put it back."

A steady hand, a keen eye, and nerves of a substance stronger than steel are a diamond polisher's vital tools. His ultimate goal is to polish a stone until it catches the light brilliantly.

Since graduating from a diamond grading course at Aurora College in 2000, Doolittle began training at Deton'cho Diamonds Inc.

He has completed half his workplace training, but has another two years to go before he can take the certification exams.

In April he won a silver medal at the Skills Canada competition in Yellowknife.

"It was a challenge to adapt to a new polishing bench, but you had to overcome that," said Doolittle.

Polishing is not as straightforward as it sounds, Doolittle said, diamonds go through processes like brooding, which makes the diamond round, cutting, boiling, and the last polishing stage, to make it ready for retail, brillianteering.

The polisher's skill, speed, the size of the stone, and type of cut all contribute to the time it takes to produce the end product. The longer the process takes, the more expensive the diamond is to produce, which ultimately ends up putting a bigger hole in that hopeful fiance's wallet.

Most stones can take up to five days to go through the full process until completion, when they are ready to be set in a ring.

Technology has made improvements in the field, admitted Doolittle, through the use of a computer program that verifies tiny angles that are hard for the human eye to see.

But, he added, if it was cost effective for the company to use a machine to do the work of a human polisher, he would be out of a job by now.

Doolittle once questioned his future in the field when a diamond he had cut weighed in grossly smaller than he intended.

"It weighed 1.10 carats before I cut it. Then after the initial work I weighed it again. I was supposed to have 1 carat at the end. The scale showed .95 carats and I wasn't even finished cutting," he said.

Doolittle's mini-heart attack ended when he realized, that, whoops, the scale was unbalanced.

"I have yet to kill a stone," Doolittle said with a shrug.

Security is a huge concern in the industry. Potential employees must pass criminal record checks before they will be considered.

The beauty of his job, Doolittle admitted is that every stone is different.

"I have daily fulfilment from my job," he said.

"Especially when my boss smiles, because I have finished a diamond that sparkles like a star."