Soldering gem stones

I have soldered prongs w/diamonds in place and quenched them in sparex while
very hot never ahad a failure done this for 20 years. Has anyone ever
experienced a diamod shattering from such treatment? I have also soldered
rubies and sapphires in place succesfully but am not sure that you dont get
some color change in some cseses so I rrmove colored stones these days.

                                   RALPH <crisbass>

Beleive the RULE … OF … Thumb … RED, WHITE , GREEN, LEAVE IN… AGAIN
… MEANING RUBY, DIAMOND, EMERALD… THAT WAS BEFORE ‘WE’ learned to fill
feathers … errr did I say feathers? . . . . I ment Cracks…

Jim

At 04:58 PM 11/1/96 -0600, you wrote:

Ralph

At the risk of saying something you may already know, I would like to
advise you that boric acid will etch the surface of saphhires when
soldering. It can also etch other corundums, but not as severely.

I’ve also been tipping set diamonds (for over 25 years) and have never
seen any problems, although I had been warned about various things
(boric acid, solder, etc…) sticking to the diamonds.

One of my fellow jewelers once blew up a 1 ct. diamond while trying to
tip it with platinum (dummy!) It exploded like a fire cracker (loud!).
It had a large black carbon inclusion in it that expanded.

Ralph wrote:

I have soldered prongs w/diamonds in place and quenched them in sparex while
very hot never ahad a failure done this for 20 years. Has anyone ever
experienced a diamod shattering from such treatment? I have also soldered
rubies and sapphires in place succesfully but am not sure that you dont get
some color change in some cseses so I rrmove colored stones these days.

                                           RALPH <crisbass>
         Jeffrey Everett

Handmade 18K, 22K, and platinum gemstone fine jewelry.
Diamond setting, rubber/metal molds, casting, lapidary
Die and mold engraving, plastic patterns for casting.
Cad jewelry design, cad/cam milling scroll filigree…
P O Box 2057 Fairfield IA 52556 515-469-6250

Jeffrey Everett wrote:

Ralph

At the risk of saying something you may already know, I would like to
advise you that boric acid will etch the surface of saphhires when
soldering. It can also etch other corundums, but not as severely.

I’ve also been tipping set diamonds (for over 25 years) and have never
seen any problems, although I had been warned about various things
(boric acid, solder, etc…) sticking to the diamonds.

One of my fellow jewelers once blew up a 1 ct. diamond while trying to
tip it with platinum (dummy!) It exploded like a fire cracker (loud!).
It had a large black carbon inclusion in it that expanded.

Ralph wrote:

I have soldered prongs w/diamonds in place and quenched them in sparex while
very hot never ahad a failure done this for 20 years. Has anyone ever
experienced a diamod shattering from such treatment? I have also soldered
rubies and sapphires in place succesfully but am not sure that you dont get
some color change in some cseses so I rrmove colored stones these days.

                                           RALPH <crisbass>
             Jeffrey Everett

Handmade 18K, 22K, and platinum gemstone fine jewelry.
Diamond setting, rubber/metal molds, casting, lapidary
Die and mold engraving, plastic patterns for casting.
Cad jewelry design, cad/cam milling scroll filigree…
P O Box 2057 Fairfield IA 52556 515-469-6250

I thought I should add here that cleaning the ring well before trying
to solder with the stone in place is very important.Best to clean the
item in the ultrasonic then solder.(barring stones such as opal which do
not like ultrasonic treatment of course)
As for leaving diamonds in place when soldering or retipping,I do it
more often than not and never had a problem but have seen others who
have screwed up in big way such as one who ruined a 3.5 carat stone.I
think he’s still paying for that mistake.
I remove it if it is a stone that I feel I could not replace.Usually I
leave it if it happens to have a thin girdle or perhaps a flaw hidden by
a prong or etc.Risks of breaking a stone or chipping it along the girdle
when removing and then resetting it are greater in some cases than the
risk of damaging it by soldering with it in place so it becomes a
judgement call.