We do not glue diamonds in anything! We spend most of our life
learning how to prevent stones from falling out.
Gerry, I’ll give you one possible exception to this. Now and then,
one is called on to repair or work on a piece of existing, poorly
set, invisible set jewelry. Some of them are made with invisible set
diamond portions that have been, after setting, assembled into the
rest of the ring or piece of jewelry (most I’ve seen are rings).
Once done, it can be the case that you simply do not have adequate
access to the sides of the channels to do anything significant about
loose stones, or the original setting work can have been so bad that
even if you’ve got access to the sides good enough to allow a bit of
burnishing, etc, you still might not be able to fully tighten loose
stones. We saw one such ring recently. On take in, from another
retail jeweler (we work as a job shop in addition to manufacturing
our own line), we initially told them it was likely that stones in
the invisible set bar that had been soldered into the top of the
ring, extending under the large center diamond, would be likely to
loosen if we sized the ring down as they requested, and we told them
it might ruin the ring, and we couldn’t be sure of being able to
retighten those stones. We warned em. Told em it really should go
back to the manufacturer (as much as anything, as punishment to them
for doing what we could tell was a shitty job of setting in the
first place). But no. You all know some such retailers. They had
to have the job. Their risk, and everything. So I sized the ring
down. Careful not to risk bending that top plate with the diamonds,
I left the ring oval. This worked well, and we returned the ring to
them with a sigh of relief. It showed up again the next day, with a
note that the customer didn’t like the oval shape, and insisted it be
rounded up. Again, we told em this was a really bad idea. They
insisted, of course. So what the hell. I rounded it up, and as
expected, virtually all the diamonds in that double row of invisible
set stones were now a bit loose. I burnished the ones I could reach
a little, which helped some, but restricted access made this not
fully effective, and our diamond setter (who’s pretty good at
invisible settings on new things) just laughed, and said I’d probably
gotten them tighter than he could. Needless to say, after a light
buffing, and a quick dip in the ultrasonic (our polisher doesn’t
know the meaning of “be very careful with this”, one stone fell out,
and the rest were even looser. Well, I got it back in, sorta, but
things were still loose, with no real fix other than what it really
needed, to be totally remade correctly, which of course the store
didn’t want.
So, Gerald, I submit to you that in this case, the little bit of
super glue I had to use to keep those damned stones in the damned
ring, was about my only real choice. Using just a tiny bit, applied
with a scalpel edge just at the sides, little enough got on the
stones so that they still appeared nice and bright, yet I know I got
enough in there that those diamonds may actually stay reasonably tight
in the ring for some time.
Yes, I know. Not a good thing all around. But sometimes, one has
no other choices. And the customer DID know there was a risk, so
this wasn’t done behind anyone’s back, or presented as fine
craftsmanship.
It’s an example of one main exception to the “glue shouldn’t be
needed” question. In some repair work, on existing jewelry where you
simply have not been given the option to do things right, at an
appropriate price, and don’t have a decent option to just turn down
the job, then sometimes glue, though not satisfying, can be a valid
choice.
Peter
Peter- I know EXACTLY where