Hello everyone,
Its always a pleasure reading this forum and I value all the advice
I see from all of you but I rarely post.
I have a new question that I have not encountered before. I have a
ring with a 7x5 emerald cut emerald. Anything I do to repair this
ring involves removing the stone and resetting it. The inclusions?
cracks? microscopically reach the surface - I have doubts whether it
will stay together at all onceremoved. I have talked the customer
into relieving me of any responsibility if it does not make it. I
know you will all say “don’t do it!” I have guts and an 8 month
experience with an emerald with a chip hanging off the corner, I set
that thing over and over in white gold without losing that chip. I
am willing to try this in the yellow gold stuller-4 prong mounting.
That being said, I need a plan. I thought that if I coated it with
superglue, it might stay together enough to set (more or less). Then
I realized that #1: the superglue might block the pores from oiling
and #2: What damagemight the acetone do to the emerald? I told the
customer that I was going to be VERY slow about this. Thanks in
advance for any advice, J. Rose
No. Both the acetone and the glue will ruin the emerald and yes you
are right the glue will block the emerald from any future oiling.
This is a perfect project for a skilled laser technician. Repairs
can be done without pulling the stone.
Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com
Neither acetone nor crazy glue will “ruin” an emerald. If the
emerald has been oiled, the cyanoacryate glue may not enter the
oil-filled fractures at all, or not very deeply. Note “MAY not
enter.” Dissolving the crazy glue with acetone will only “ruin” the
emerald to the extent that it may dissolve out some of the oiling if
there is any. My understanding is that in some cases in preparing a
stone to be re-oiled, seriously drastic measures come into play to
remove the pre-existing oiling, for instance boiling it in a mixture
of nitric and (if I recall correctly) sulphuric acid.Compared to
reagents like those acetone won’t do a thing - to the stone itself.
Worst case scenario is it may conceivably need re-oiling which is no
big deal.
Just as an after note one thing that can definitely ruin an emerald
is putting it in the ultrasonic. I once transformed one emerald into
three that way. It was not the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
Cheers,
Hans Durstling
Moncton, Canada.
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Don’t remove it, use or send it to someone with a laser. Unless
repair is right by the gem.