I am based in the UK and am desperately looking for a setting tool
called a Side Pusher. It is used for flush setting stones without
marking the metal. It looks very much like a bezel pusher, however
one side of the tip is slightly curved rather than a straight edge
so as not to leave an imprint in the metal when you push.
Unless I’m very much mistaking your description, it seems to me you
could very quickly and easily modify one of the bezel pushers to be
what you want. Or just make the tool from scratch. I’ll bet it
wouldn’t take you very long at all, and would save you all that
despiration… Steel tools are very easy to reshape and repolish with
any standard abrasives, ie sanding sticks, disks in the flex shaft,
various rubber wheels, etc, and polish up with the same materials
you’d use for gold or silver. If the steel needs to be actually bent,
then you’d need to soften it and reharden it as desired, but that’s
not hard to do either…
In fact, thinking about it, I don’t think I have a single setting
tool on my bench that hasn’t been modified from it’s “new” condition,
in some way. Some modifications are as simple as cleaning up the
shape and polishing better (the usual curved burnishers are sometimes
a bit sloppy in finish right at the all important tip, for example).
Others started just with a standard piece of tool steel or carbide
and got turned into something I can use. Remember that craftpeople
are not just too users. We’ve got a long tradition of tool making
too. Now some tools, like files or rotary burs, are probably best
left to the manufacturers for their original form, at least for
cutting the teeth. But I’ve got many files (not to mention pliers,
especially, and all those various burnishers and pushers and various
other simple tools) that have been trimmed or otherwise modified.
Don’t be shy about making a tool or changing one. It’s all part of
the job.
Peter