Hi all!
Lets suppose you have to burnish bead tips as they are right against
a fragile gemstone. These could be an Emerald, Blue Topaz or even a
Citrine.
Your heart stops for a moment thinking of the results of crunching
the Crown or Girdle facets of that expensive stone.
So what would you do to get those beads nicely rounded and
burnished? You should be now using a “bead-burnisher” that is
slightly larger than the bead itself.
If you use a bead burnisher that is exactly the same size, you will
find a little cup or rim around the top of the bead, this is not nice
to see. Lets suppose now you are to start the burnishing process but
here is where the problem will lay…“stop…right…now!”.
Get your bead-burnisher and lay the tip of the tool at a 45 degree
angle on your oil-stone, here you must draw it only 2-3 times and you
will have a little facet just at the tip of your tool. Originally
your tool should have a complete circle at the rim, not now. If you
look at the tool point with your 10x loupe, you will see it is now
only 75% of a circle.
That faceted edge of your tool will now avoid the facets of any
gemstone. You can, only now, can you burnish to your hearts content
and with no fear of damaging your delicate gemstone. Your “faceted
tool edge” must be almost resting against the gemstone to have this
process take effect. Basically, you have taken away the ‘offending
edge’ of that burnishing tool. You can now hold the burnisher even at
a vertical angle without any qualms of breakage.
Just imagine how many stones you were breaking in the past? Not now,
or for evermore in the future. I even use this little “faceted,
bead-burnisher” to lightly push over some ultra-delicate, mini-claws
using this very same bead-burnisher. You have just now made a new
setting tool for yourselves, easy wasn’t it?
Gerry!