R & D
I guess 80% of this website is devoted to research and developing stuff. So most of what I could say here is repeated all over the site.
Diamond related R&D started in 1984 and resulted in the Ideal-Scope and later my version of the AGS ASET that Al Gilbertson discovered in parallel in the 1990’s. Frustration with the GIA’s brilliance study in 1998 led to the development of HCA.
Meeting first online, then in person in 2001 at Moscow State Uni, Sergey Sivovolenko and Dr. Yuri Shelementiev. Resulted in 2 decades of research.
In 2004 we became known as the Cut Group: Sergey, Janak Mistry (Sergey’s agent and diamond tool manufacturer in Surat, India), me and Yuri. We held the first Diamond Cut Conference in Moscow. The famous Gabi Tolkowsky MC’d and major diamond cutting manufacturers attended. All major labs attended and presented except GIA who were told by their lawyers that attending could breach fair trade laws because all their competitors were going.
Among our many projects is the Master Stone Set that we have built and funded personally.
We continue as associates but work less intensively together today.
We have several patents jointly.