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I am looking for the best way to flush set 7 square diamonds in a
hefty ~3mm thick 10cm tall 14ky gold band that I made it has a rough
hammered texture, sort of matte looking. I already have the band
formed into the ring shape. The diamonds range in size from 1.5-3mm.
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Or, is there a good way to set them slightly above the surface
with a bezel type setting? (example pictured at link below)
I am not trained in stone setting, but have done a ton of reading on
the forum and have not found anything about flush setting small
princess cut diamonds. I have learned a lot in the forum on how to
flush set round stones and I have successfully done this a few
times.
I have ball burs, bud burs, 90 deg. hart burs and stone setting burs.
I have a LX Foredom with a hammer hand piece also (although this is a
new tool for me).
I have no experience with gravers, but I do have them, but they have
not been shaped/sharpened.
I did make a practice ring in sterling with cz’s set in fine silver,
but I had some breakage of the corners of stones while seating them
and the settings don’t look all that great. I used a tiny bud bur in
each corner of the seats to relieve any pressure on the corners of
the stones, but still had some issues. You can see the process photos
here at the link below. Any advice/critique about this process would
be great. I would also not do the settings in fine silver again as it
is probably to soft for this. I also realized I need to move the
stones closer to the center because this is a middle finger ring, so
I don’t want the stones poking adjacent fingers… But if I manage to
flush set them, I would probably keep the stone spacing.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=268127&id"829927320
Thank you!
Beth Millner
Beth, Check out the Blaine Lewis videos and DVD’s on flush setting
of stones. One of the the DVD’s deals specifically with princess cut
stones. It is a wonderful resource, everything is magnified so that
you can see precisely what to do, what tools to use, and even how to
make special too ls.
Alma
hi beth
not sure if this is going to get to you as it is my first post but i
have 30 years experience in making custom jewellery and have set
hundreds of square stones. every one has a different take on it but
based on your experience i have put some thought into what might
work best for you.
do not solder anything to your ring shank. with the texture you have
created you will have a very hard time cleaning any discolouration
from your ring after heating and soldering. your best bet is to
stick with the flush mount. here are 2 easy ways to do it.
option 1
mark you spot with a center punch. drill a hole that is half the
width of your stone. take a setting burr that is exactly the same
size as the width of your stone and cut a round seat the depth you
think you need. you can now use the shape of the round seat a guide
for the square seat. now mark out your square shape taking care not
to make it bigger than your stone. use a.5 mm (not sure about the
imperial measure) ball bur as fast as your pendant drill with turn it
(full throttle) with a very very light touch slowly carve out the
corners of your square to the same depth of the seat the setting burr
made. I use a air driver drill for this as it turns at 450000 rpm i
think you will get 20000 at best from your drill so i stress light
touch so you dont drag over the top of the ring and try to travel in
a clockwise direction pulling the drill towards you. dont worry at
this point about making the ends of your square slightly rounded this
will give the corners extra room to fit. the most important thing is
to make sure you sides fit as closely as humanly possible.
you can now concentrate on the inside hole. use a three square
needle file to open up the round hole and make it square take care
not to widen the overall length and width. if you leave even 1/10 of
a mm of a seat it will stop your stone from falling through. work at
it slowly this will be a learning experience for you so take your
time and rest assured a diamond can take a bit more abuse than a cz
can.
when the stone fits you can use a burnisher to burnish down the
sides of the hole over the stone. Dont worry if you can see the
corners of the diamond under magnification if you managed to get the
stone to stay in place and the whole to look square you deserve a pat
on the back. if the whole looks out of square you now use a very
sharp graver 45 degree or 90 degree to gently carve some of the
material away from the center to the corner. if your graver is sharp
you will need very little forward force. dont try to take out to much
in one pass for your first attempt.
Option 2
mark rectangle areas that have a slightly smaller width and longer
length than your stone. drill out 2 holes side by side within the
lines. file out the shape then use a barring bur to cut a channel in
the border lengths about as deep as you would cut a seat. ideally
the same depth as the distance between the girdle and the table of
the stone. this is called a channel setting. you cut one a bit deeper
than the other then rock the stone down into the channel of one side
then with gentle pressure force the other side down until you here a
click. your stone should move back and forth along the length of the
hole without falling out. you now burnish the lengths down into the
stone taking cart to do it slowly and keep the stone in the center.
you will end up with being able to see negative space beside the
stone but you can call it a design feature.
sharpening gravers is a very practiced skill in itself. do some
research. setting square stones is a very advanced skill. i
encourage you to give it a go but you need to have patience with
yourself.
rather than practicing on cz in the future use white sapphires. in
small sizes they are very affordable and allot tougher than cz. it
will help your confidence. cz are cheep but very brittle so are very
aggravating for a beginner.
hope this helps and if you need clarification just ask.
Les Riddell
Beth,
You are embarking on a difficult process to get this right. I am sure
you will get some advice on this, but for you, without practice, I
would stay with the bezels. There are different techniques to
accomplish this, but the one main thing to remember is the points of
the stones have to be totally relieved of pressure. Think of setting
the stones by “edges” only and you will not have too much breakage.
I have set them two different ways: First, the hole for the square
stones should be 95 to 98 percent the size of it no matter what
technique is used and in the following method two sides at 100%.
Place the stone table down and scribe a line around the outside. Cut
the hole out using any method that will keep corners square…I like
the Krause bur for the corner details, but if you can, use a saw
blade. Scribe a line around the perimeter to note the depth of the
stone into the metal. Drill out for the corners with a drill bit or
ball bur, you can use your bud bur here but "you must clean out for
the Keel pavilions on them as well. In other words, leave no pressure
on the points. Cut the seats with the 90 hart bur just under the
surface on two parallel sides. Make sure you run the bur into the
holes and then re-clean out holes. The other sides should be open
enough to let the edges of the stone pass…in other words don’t cut
seats for those two edges. Slip the one end in with the two corners
and the seat cut and bring down the back side passing the two side
walls. Burnish the two setting sides first and then burnish the two
pseudo sides to make it look like a square. This is the easiest way
I have ever set them and it does take a little practice. Do it in
silver with CZ’s first.
Kind regards,
Russ Hyder
The Jewelry CAD Institute
I always had a struggle flush setting square shape, or any shape
with sharp corners. I could do it, but I certainly was not
comfortable, or happy doing so.
A few years back I purchased an instructional DVD “Flush & Bezel
Setting” by Blaine Lewis. That disc, and his other setting tutorial,
“The Art of Setting Princess Cuts”, made my life SO much easier! Step
by step he leads you through the process, with tips and techniques I
never quite figured out on my own.
I highly recommend My Lewis’ training videos, for anyone wanting to
learn these advanced setting techniques. Sure made my life less
stressful.
Recently Kate Wolf, the wax carving wonder showed me a wonderful
additional tip of using India ink to expose the spots a stone is
hanging up when carving a wax to fit it. I now use India ink this
same way, when setting difficult fancy shape stones into wax or
metal. Quick and easy way to locate the exact spot the stone is
binding or hitting, so I can adjust/remove just the right amount of
material, so the stone fits into its seat like a glove, and yet all
risk laden points, corners, thin girdles are protected.
I also went to the Meiji microscope, because 35 years at the bench
have not been kind to my eyes, and I need to see EXACTLY what is
happening where metal and stone come in contact with each other.