What an interesting day, I had a meeting which was held at a coloured stone cutting workshop (known as a 'lapidary') in Hatton Garden (London) and they kindly let me take a photo of one of their cutting benches for me to share. Can you believe stones are still cut in this way?! Of course, this is mostly for one-off or special stones as opposed to the vast majority which are cut overseas. Diamond cutting is done slightly differently.


Anyway...
For such a complicated task the equipment appears relatively basic, (from what I understand) the stones are cut & polished against a copper plate finely loaded up with a cutting powder. The stone itself is held on an incredibly basic stick stuck on with setters cement & correctly angled by maker by wedging it against the post with all the holes in it (see pic) and lowering onto the revolving plate, which is motor powered or turned by hand depending on whether you are cutting or polishing (the turning handle was made from very old bike parts!). The cutters and polishers must be incredibly skilled and it was a privilege to see a snippet of how it's done.