Gold ring question

My wife has had a gold ring for several years. It may have been a
cast ring originally. It has round seats for 13 round emeralds.
These are in a dome shape. She had lost two sets so I was going to
replace the missing sets. Yesterday, before I got started on the
project she lost one more set. This was the very top, center stone.
When I started looking at it today I found out that one of the four
prongs for the top center stone had broken and this is what had
caused her to loose the center stone. As I continued to look at the
ring, I saw that some of the metal work forming part of the "base"
of the ring was also missing. It appears to have been a wire like
mesh or web close to where it would sit on her finger. I also saw
what appeared to be some cracking in at least one of the round cups
that hold the stones. Is there a way to repair this ring or should I
just take the stones out and try to find another setting similar and
put the stones in the new ring? I do some silver work but have not
done anything in 10K gold. Is this a ring that would be good for me
to practice on?

I would probably not pay anyone else to work on it but I would just
buy another ring for her or a setting that I could put the stones
in. In her other rings, I have had to replace some of the small
emeralds that had been lost over the space of a year or two so I
could reset the stones.

Thank you for your ideas. My wife says, “You should have taken those
one-on-one jewelry lessons when they were offered to you.” Yes,
maybe I will still have the opportunity.

Larry Who does mostly cutting and polishing of flat specimens for
other people as well as some cabbing.

whoa dude… 10 karat is one of the hardest golds to work. The lower
the carat… the harder it gets…sounds like the cast it to cool and
the structure was crystallized. that is what causes the cracking
often… the ring has been contaminated with lottsa foreign matter
and would have to be cleaned and pickled very well… often, the
structure will react poorly to the heat and may show further
damage… emeralds are easy to break and it takes a good setter to
put them in 10 karat without a body count… my suggestion is step up
to at least 14k… If your a good silver worker you’ll find it much
easier to work with gold! Good Luck, Ringman

Can’t tell you if you need a new ring. If it would look OK remove
all stones and solder in new heads and reset. You can’t repair any of
the prongs without taking out all emeralds anyway.

David Geller