It is widely assumed that the real obstacle for the growth of the market for diamond based products and applications is not only a relatively high cost of the material itself, but foremost the costly process of shaping of the manufactured objects. The latter is due to the need to polish away often relatively large volumes of the diamond material until the final shape is reached. This polishing is very slow, requires the use of expensive equipment and makes the manufacturing process dependent on expensive specialists with today rare skills. Bettonville NV, based in Antwerp, Belgium, has come up with a solution to this problem with the launch of its new laser system, UltraShape II, which allows for quick and safe removal of the excess diamond material, leaving only approximately 20 microns for the fine polishing. With the UltraShape II laser, Bettonville provides diamond tool manufacturers with a system which enables:

a considerable increase of manufacturing throughput

a dramatic reduction of manufacturing costs as less time will be needed and less labour will be involved in the final polishing of the excessive material

higher predictability of the manufacturing costs as always only around 20 microns overhang can be left for the final polishing 100 year history

Bettonville NV is over 100 years old and since its early days has been serving the gem-diamond industry worldwide. It is known to have exhibited its machines and tools on the World Exhibitions in Paris in 1931, in New York in 1939 and in Brussels in 1958. One of its most successful products was diamond sawing blades and diamond sawing machines for abrasive sawing of the natural diamonds. The quality and performance of the sawing blades was unparalleled in the diamond industry and for decades Bettonville enjoyed almost full monopoly on the market. Another product, which has revolutionised the way gem diamonds were shaped, was an automatic bruting machine (diamond round-shaping machine) traded under the name Maxicut. The concept of Maxicut using “revolving diamond to shape the other diamond” was patented worldwide and was developed further over the years into 8 consecutive generations of automatic bruting machines.

Laser systems for cutting gem diamonds 10 years ago, Bettonville introduced the first commercial laser system for very safe (less then 0.1% damaged stones) and very fast (over 300 carats of 6-grainers/day) diamond sawing. It was a real technological revolution as sawing of one-carat diamond (approximately 4 mm in diameter) was shortened from 3 hours of abrasive sawing to 4 minutes of laser sawing.

As a result of further developments, in 2003, a versatile Bettonville COMBI laser system was introduced to the gem diamond market.