Good resource for setting stones?

Jewelry Discussion
41

I consider metal choices in the process of making jewelry a 2 part
affair.

Part #1:

Choosing the metal that best gets the job done: the metal that is
most suited to the application of making the piece. In the example of
bezel setting a cabochon, choosing a finer (and so more malleable)
metal such as .999 silver or 22k yellow/green gold provides ease and
facility in getting the stone in tightly with as little risk to it as
possible. Using thinner gauges gives even more advantage.

BUT, there is Part#2:

After the stone is set the piece goes out in the world. Itā€™s as if
the ring, pendant, buckle, etc. has two lives: ATB (At The Bench) and
ITRW (In The Real World). Metal and material choices must provide for
both lives. The softer, finer metals facilitate Part 1 butā€“depending
on the application and demands of use-- may not be the best choice
for Part #2. They are softer and wear more quicklyā€“especially in
thinner gauges.

It seems that we are taught to pay the most attention to Part #1. But
work at the repair bench for any length of time and you will come to
understand the balance in the lives of a piece of jewelry.

Just my 2 cents,
Take care, Andy

42 
I prefer the curved burnisher coming from over the top of the stone
and pulling rather than pushing for burnishing. So many tools, so
few good instructions....

For the thread more than Mary in particular. You get your fine
silver bezel and you put your stone in it to the height you want it.
You get your curved-tip steel burnisher - I prefer the long one.
Hold it by the handle and go around the mid point of the bezel,
rolling your wrist as you go.

This pushes the bezel up against the stone. Then hold the burnisher
on the steel part, with just some of the tip coming out of your hand.
With the stone in front of you, put the curved tip on the FAR side of
the bezel, and go around it again, pulling the top edge securely down
on the stone. Two steps: first get the bezel around the stone, then
get the top edge securely down and finished. Done! Should take a
minute or two, on a well fitted bezel. Just about the easiest
setting job there isā€¦

43 
I don't get this. Not to defend the bezel roller, which I have
found to be of minimal use, but the ones I know about are curved
and only a tiny point will be in contact with the bezel. The end
result is a similar amount of contact as the pusher, maybe less.

Gemstone pusher design is another subject, but if commercially
available pushers probably act as bezel rollers.

If we consider the question in silversmithing terms, using bezel
roller is akin to spinning, and using pusher is akin to raising. The
source of confusion is that one can use bezel roller as a pusher, and
pusher as a bezel roller.

Closing a bezel means making diameter smaller. The question arises
where excess of metal is going to go. Pusher goes for compression,
while bezel roller forces excess of metal upwards.

As far as area of contact - to use bezel roller as intended, bezel
roller is stationary and bezel is rolled against the front edge. To
understand dynamics of it, make a larger copy from wood and model
bezel in plasticine. Watching how plasticine deforms against the
roller is indicative to metal behavior.

Leonid Surpin

44 
WOW, ain't differences of opinion great.

Well yes, and wouldnā€™t the world be a boring place if we were all
the same?! :wink:

In fact, maybe many of us have already tried both and have found
the one that works best

I have tried both (albeit fine silver only once, but that was enough
for me) and sterling is my own personal choice - for now - until I
can afford something even harder and more durable than sterling, ie
gold.

Iā€™m not at all worried about stones falling out of fine silver
bezels, and understand the engineering aspect can mean sufficient
strength to hold a stone for generations, BUT for me, itā€™s the
denting and scratching thing, AND the fact that many beginners are
not equipped with the necessary bezel engineering skills they need
when they go out and try to set other stones with more fancy shapes,
and faceted stones, which require more engineering than just a simple
fine silver bezel wrapped around a stone.

I agree that in the right, skilled hands and with the right
engineering, fine silver has its uses. I apologise if I have been a
little pig-headed and over-zealous in my aversion to it. I think my
problem has more to do with technique than metal of choice, and it
will be technique that I concentrate on, when writing the tutorials
I have been asked for.

Helen
UK

45 
Part #1: Choosing the metal that best gets the job done: [snip]
That was a very well put post on the subject.

Thank you Andy.

It seems that we are taught to pay the most attention to Part #1.
But work at the repair bench for any length of time and you will
come to understand the balance in the lives of a piece of jewelry.

Very true. The use of sterling as opposed to fine silver, certainly
does make jewellery repair more difficult, but not impossible, and
Iā€™ve had to repair a number of (other jewellersā€™) sterling pieces
for people. Itā€™s doable, but you have to cut stones out of settings,
rather than bending a bezel back. The repair of harder metals such
as gold and platinum are also an issue by the same token. But I
suppose that the higher cost of those metals justifies the extra
labour involved in repairing those pieces, whereas a sterling or fine
silver piece is worth considerably less, so a customer might not be
willing to pay exorbitant amounts for a sterling silver repair -
depends on its sentimental value I suppose.

Helen
UK

46

I just rechecked my three little tools (reminder, I donā€™t know how to
use them, and am looking forward to Helenā€™s info on her blog!)
against the drawings provided by Neilthejeweler, and I do, in fact,
possess the ā€˜uselessā€™ shaped rocker - domed on both plains. Iā€™m
fascinated to understand how the rocker with a slit in it would work

  • I use it for prying metal away from things and it worked nicely to
    fold an edge of a pendant (along with a good whack from my hammer).

Cheers,
Ros

47 
Closing a bezel means making diameter smaller. The question arises
where excess of metal is going to go. Pusher goes for compression,
while bezel roller forces excess of metal upwards.

A very good observation/explanation. I didnā€™t realise it before you
said that Leonid, but what you say makes complete sense of my
observations, my problems with using a bezel roller in the early
days, and my subsequent preference for a hammer and punch/pusher. It
does compress the metal in a much more satisfactory way than a bezel
roller.

Helen

48 
I'm merely offering one perspective, for people to try. Lots of
people are very interested to try what I'm saying. All I'm
wanting, is for those who want to try it, to try it, and learn from
it - either use bits of it if they like it, combine it with their
own methods, or reject it out of hand if they don't like it - but
they'd still learn from it. It's always been my opinion that you
learn as much from what doesn't work for you, as from what does
work.

Helen is quite right by my practice, details may vary from mine but
she is right. Thick real solid good metal bezels are standard practice
for me, 0.3mm fine bezels would have me running screaming naked for
the hills. (yes I do live surrounded by small mountains) I can do
thin fine bezels but just wonā€™t with my name attached.

jeffD
Demand Designs
Analog/Digital Modelling & Goldsmithing
http://www.gmavt.net/~jdemand

49

Todd,

Regarding all this discussion about hammering the bezel (including
hammerpiece), I mostly set quality opals, and a bit afraid to
start pounding away!

Hammering either with just a hammer or also using a punch has no
real danger just as long as you donā€™t hit the stone. A hammer piece
is faster but has more risk. A perfect bearing is needed but this
detail is part of all setting. Just donā€™t whack the stone at all and
all is fine and fun.

jeffD
Demand Designs
Analog/Digital Modelling & Goldsmithing
http://www.gmavt.net/~jdemand

50

Leonid,

Yes, that is one of the issues with bezel settings. Work hardening
is a function of metal thickness. It take very little manipulation
of thin metal to start work hardening as opposed to thicker metal.
It may appear that thin bezel would be easier to set, but unless
one can close it efficiently, without over-handling, it will
develop a resistance to bending and puckering and other problems
will result.

Thank you.

I havenā€™t kept tally but you seem to be one of the few posters who
know how to do this right and still retain full control of the bezel
process.

jeffD
Demand Designs
Analog/Digital Modelling & Goldsmithing
http://www.gmavt.net/~jdemand

51 
There ya go, Helen - put the cart after the horse, not before. As
for the rest of Helen's post, I, for one, like pretty much
everything about her - she only knows as much as she knows, like
everybody else on the planet. At least she knows THAT, which many
can't grasp for themselves.

Thank you very much John. Your support is very much appreciated.

Take a fine silver strip and you can bend it like paper. Make a
circle and it becomes 10 times stiffer. Solder that circle down on
a sheet and it becomes 100 times stiffer. Put a tight-fitting stone
inside and rub the edge down tightly against that stone and it's
not going anywhere because of the engineering of it.

Yes, thatā€™s true, and I appreciate the engineering aspect of it, and
have mentioned that myself. But itā€™s not that, that bothers me. Iā€™m
not worried about stones falling out of settings. Itā€™s more its
propensity to scratch and dent, and its use by hundreds of beginners
who have been taught to wrap a thin fine silver bezel around a
cabochon (which works fine for the supervised setting of round or
oval stone in class), and then go on their way setting stones on
their own, only to find they run into problems when they try and set
that lovely pear or marquise cab they picked up somewhere. Many
people are leaving classes without the bezel engineering skills
necessary to do the work they want to do, and as such are
encountering problems with puckering, and/or cutting very ugly slits
in their bezel corners.

I do now realise that in the hands of skilled jewellers, fine silver
does indeed have more applications than I had previously thought,
and I have perhaps been more than a little pig-headed in my zeal
against its use. I think my problems are more to do with technique
than metal of choice, and when writing the tutorials Iā€™ve been asked
(by a number of people) to write, it will be technique that I
concentrate on.

I, personally will still continue to use sterling, as it works very
well for me, and I donā€™t have a problem with its hardness - in fact
Iā€™d prefer something even harder at some point when finances allow!

Thanks again John.

Helen
UK

52

Hi Ros,

am looking forward to Helen's info on her blog!

Sorry, wonā€™t be too long now. I was kicking myself today, as I
decided to start a customerā€™s pair of cufflinks over again, because
the Argentium I was making them from slumped during my last
soldering operation (attaching the findings) - my fault for not
supporting it. So I started making them again out of ordinary
sterling, and thought it would be a good opportunity to start my
bezel setting cabochons tutorial, as they are quite a simple design.
But then, a few steps down the line, I realised that I had forgotten
to take any photos!!! Doh!

However, my daughter was pleading with me today, to help her come up
with a hobby she can take up, and I suggested that I teach her
jewellery making again (I started to teach her at one point, but she
lost interest). She agreed, and has chosen a stone with which to
make a ring. I will use a similar stone and make the same piece, step
by step so as to teach Chloe. All being well, if I remember this
time, I will take the accompanying photos and start the blogs later
this week.

Helen
UK

53 
Helen is quite right by my practice, details may vary from mine
but she is right.

Thanks Jeff. I know Iā€™ve not been at this for decades like some on
Orchid, but in my limited experience (during which Iā€™ve learned
LOTS), Iā€™ve discovered that thick sterling is my personal animal of
choice for the type of bezel settings I like to do.

Helen
UK

54

Helen, have you ever used Britannia silver for settings? Higher MP
than sterling but not as soft as fine silver and has a bit of "set"
to it. Good for enamelling too. Not many profiles available but
stepped bezel used to be available. I used to use it for box lids
set with large cabochons.

Nick Royall

55 
Helen, have you ever used Britannia silver for settings? Higher MP
than sterling but not as soft as fine silver and has a bit of
"set" to it. Good for enamelling too. Not many profiles available
but stepped bezel used to be available. I used to use it for box
lids set with large cabochons.

Sorry, Nick, Iā€™ve only just noticed this post. I have used it once,
but didnā€™t really find much advantage to it. Iā€™m happy with sterling
and donā€™t have any problems with its hardness. Iā€™m not sure how real
its tarnish resistance is, compared to Argentium or even to ordinary
sterling - although of course it claims to be tarnish resistant. But
itā€™s how it performs in the real world with everyday use that
counts, rather than the dealersā€™ claims and Iā€™m not sure about that.
Have you used it much? If so, have you found it to be significantly
more tarnish resistant than sterling?

Helen
UK

56

A friend tried setting flat stones by the shrink method. It was a lot
of trial and error, but I know he got it right in the end ! I think
he only tried round stones, but the idea was to make a thick bezel
slightly smaller than the stone, this was then heated until it
expanded bigger than the stone, it was then fitted - still hot - and
allowed to shrink back to its size, it was now tight on the stone !
This allows a stone with no top bevel and a setting level with the
top of the stone. It looked great !! Just an idea to put out there !

Best wishes from Nelson NZ
Philip Wells