I have a 10kt w/g ring with a 6mm pearl. Would the Garnet Sand
protect the Pearl enough to size the ring up. Thanks for any help Bob
Hi Bob,
Since it is usually quite easy to remove a pearl from its peg, it
makes more sense to remove the pearl before any soldering . Removal
of the pearl is facilitated by immersing the ring in hot water for
several minutes ( make sure that there is a sufficient quantity of
water…I generally use a quart container…approximately one
liter…otherwise the temperature may not have time to transfer
to the ring.) Another approach is to heat the ring via the shank
with a torch. This latter method is a bit more risky because you may
get the pearl too hot. Using garnet sand or any other heat resistant
medium won’t keep heat from being transmitted to the pearl. However,
the problem is not so much one of burning the pearl as that of
deteriorating the glue that holds the pearl.
When remounting the pearl on its peg make sure that you remove all
vestiges of the old glue before applying the new. This is especially
important with respect to the hole in the pearl. You can remove that
glue with an appropriately sized drill bit. The glue that remains on
the ring may easily be burned off or you can scrape it off. It is
best to avoid using epoxy glue because it turns brown with age.
Magic glue ( cyanoacrylate) is also not appropriate unless it is the
special formulation for glueing non porous surfaces. It is also very
important to insure that the hole in the pearl is thoroughly dried
out if you have used the hot water method of removing the pearl.
Ron Mills Mills Gem Co., Los Osos, CA.
Dear Bob,
It would be better to heat sink the pearl in water. A Snapple lid
seems to be a good depth for this, just fill with water and place
the ring in your tweezers upside down in the water and solder.
Marta
Hello Rgoll: I use a procedure of holding the heat sensitive part of
the ring under water while soldering. In my opinion it is better than
wet sand. You may be better off soaking the ring in epoxy remover and
removing the pearl before you solder. Here is the address to a web
page I made to explain soldering with heat sensitive parts under
water. Hope this helps.
Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos Michael R.
Mathews Sr. Victoria,Texas USA
I have great luck just wraping soaking kleenex around the /stone or
pearl and lower half of the shank and soldering away. You can secure
the ring in a third hand and even add more cold water if you need to.
This way you can see the water start to bubble as the heat goes down
the shank and you can stop if you need to. The trick is to work
fairly quickly. Good luck.
Bob, I’ve never used garnet sand however, another alternative is to
fill a tuna can to the top with water and immerse just the pearl in
it while soldering the bottom of the shank. Or, if you’re real
daring, you can hold the ring in your fingers and use a real hot
flame while soldering. The heat takes a few seconds to transfer to
the top of the ring and can be dipped in water before it burns your
fingers. Customers freak out when I do this. 
Ken
Hi rgoll The problem you may run into with using garnet sand to
protect the pearl is that the sand may scratch the pearl. Unless the
ring is very heavy you should be able to place the ring in water and
leave the part that you are soldering exposed. This usually works
very well and does no harm to the pearl. Hope that helps. Ted Curtis