...can anyone share how stones such as opal, azurite,
variscite, faustite, turquoise and the like can be removed
without the deep scratching or scoring that can
occur....escecially when removing from sterling bezels?
Removing stones from settings, whether white gold bezels or
anything softer, is a matter of multiple techniques. One of the
safest ways requires destroying the bezel. You use s saw or a
seperating disk to cut the bezel just at or just below the girdle
of the stone. Don’t cut all the way through. Just enough in,
which is most of the way, that the remaining bezel thickness
will be just a shred of weak metal. This can then litterally be
peeled away from the rest of the mounting with little force at
all, resulting in no stress to the stone. Toold never touch the
stone. A variant is used with heavy prongs or beads in bead set
stones. You cut to a point just below the girdle of the
stone,leaving just a very thin web of metal. Then, the point of
a graver can grab the tip of the bead or prong, without needing
to actually pry between the stone and the metal, with enough
force to be able to just tip the now very flimsy prong or bead
backward a little (till the cut closes up again. This will be
enough to loosen the stone, and if needed, allow the prong or
bead to be safely reached with stronger methods, if it needs to
be actually removed.
I’ve also made a pair of special pliers which do a great deal of
stone removal quickly and easily. A plain pair of needled nose
pliers, (Used and beat up is fine, but needs to be decent carbon
steel, not soft stainless) is modified by heating one jaw tip red
hot and bending the last 1/8th to 1/4 inch down at a a little
less than a right angle. The end of the tip is ground to a
flat, meeting the still ong tip. The front surface is ground so
it slopes very slightly away (back towards the plier joint), if
it doesn’t already do that. The inside surface of the “claw” is
ground so that initial flat becomes a cutting edge, much like one
side of a tiny end nipper. That side of the jaw is now hardened
and tempered as a cutting edge, and kept quite sharp by grinding
the inside surface only. It will be a flush cutting edge, with
no portion of the forward end of the claw hitting what’s being
worked on before the sharp edge grabs it. The still long jaw is
bent or ground at a slight gentle curve just slightly ahead of
where the cutting jaw hits, with the front end rounded ans
softened away. This keeps that jaw from marking the mountings or
prongs where it supports them while the upper sharp jaw grabs the
tips of prongs and pries them back. The advantage of this tool
is that the jaw can be kept from slipping between the prong and
the stone, thus avoiding damage, since it’s supported on both
sides of the prong being worked on. The tool is less suited to
bezels, but will still work with them. To remove bezels, the
cutting edge is NOT pried between the stone and the bezel.
Instead, it’s dug into the top edge of the bezel metal, which can
then be pulled back. It only needs to open a slight gap between
the bezel and the stone before the tip can then be allowed to
grab the inside edge of the bezel to pull it back more, still
without ever being allowed to touch the stone itself. Once a gap
is opened, the tool is moved slightl to one side, where there is
still a gap, and the process repeated. You can pull back softer
bezels, like yellow golds, silver, and platinum, with relative
ease this way. If you get the jaws tuned just right to this
task, it can be done without much marking up of the rest of the
mounting, though you’ll leave a good scar on the top of the bezel
where you initially grab the metal’s top edge to first open it up
a little.
Hope this helps.
Peter Rowe
