Hello everybody,
I am trying to CAD a ring with a small 2.5 mm cabochon. What should be the wall thickness in the bezel? I am thinking 0.35 mm.
thank you
You could go thinner above the seat but also think about castability.
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Whatever you can cast and looks good with the stone and the rest of your piece. I have moved 1.5 mm bezel walls with a brass rod and a hammer. Others among us I am sure have moved even wider.
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thank you. Do i need to drill a hole under the seat trough the shank, like I would for faceted stones? thank you
It depends on the stone you are setting. If opaque then you don’t. If transparent then you need a way to clean it from the back side.
I teach my students to make the wall thickness for their bezels no thinner that .5mm and not thicker than .7mm. I tell them I am always thinking ahead to how long the bezel will last before it needs to be replaced. I got my start in jewelry doing repair work. It really depends in part on what type of metal you are using for the bezel: silver, brass, gold (white or yellow because white will generally wear longer in my experience), platinum, etc.
Personally, I think the bane of fabrication is that damn pre-made, fine silver bezel strip you can buy anywhere. Yes, its easy to work with and lays down flat on the stone with a bezel roller … but it’s just not substantial enough for the long run. My preference is to cut bezel strips from sheet stock using a small shear. I do use .999 because I find sterling is kinda spring sometimes. Normally 20 gauge, but really you can’t get too thick (within limits) if the bezel ends up being a design element. Obviously … anything beyond about 18 gauge is going to be hard to deal with. I confess over the years I have used a ton of the pre-made stuff. I had a job doing production work and it was easy to just knock out stuff with bezel strip. I guess it just depends on the situation.