Stone setter chipped clients sapphire

Jewelry Discussion
21 
Spoke to some other setters today, and these setters either make
an arrangement, or have insurance. I guess it depends :

As a professional trade stone setter I’d be interested to hear from
someone, anyone, who has details about the existence of liability
insurance for stone setters. The last several insurance companies I
spoke to told me there was no such policy they knew to cover damage
to a stone I set if that stone belonged to someone else. However, if
I owned a stone that was covered under my block insurance and it was
damaged by someone who I sent it out to, that could be covered.

If someone has setter’s insurance, spill the beans. No one I know
has such a thing, and I know many trade setters. What company offers
it? I need details, not, I heard of someone who heard of someone
else. Please, please someone prove me wrong.

Larry

22 
Spoke to some other setters today, and these setters either make
an arrangement, or have insurance. I guess it depends

Interesting concept… insurance covering you for being a lousy
setter

Practice practice and just don’t do anything dumb or work with weird
treated stones. The words ‘no way am I going near that job’ help a
lot. Ya don’t have to be a gemologist to be paranoid. Handling many
stones and knowing your limitations really helps too.

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

23 
If someone has setter's insurance, spill the beans. No one I know
has such a thing, and I know many trade setters. What company
offers it? I need details, not, I heard of someone who heard of
someone else. Please, please someone prove me wrong.

I’ll ask the setter next Wednesday, however this is Australia, so
there may not be an equivalent policy in the States :slight_smile: CIA

24 
And for the record, though corundum (ruby and sapphire) are fairly
tough, they are much less so than diamonds 

Peter, you surprised me. Corundum is one of the toughest stones
around, if it's corundum. What you may get sometimes is heavily
fractured crystal, which was baked with glass. These babies
crumble if you spit on them.

You’re right, Leonid, that clean corundum is very tough. But natural
sapphires are seldom quite that clean aside from the finest ones.
Heat treated ones often have some internal strain, and many have
small inclusions. I stand by my statment that diamonds of equal
clarity are higher in toughness than corundum, though I may have over
emphasized by how much. And as a comparison, when I’ve taught stone
setting, I usually like to have students begin with synthetic rubies
or spinels. Tough, cheap, and the red color makes it easier, I
think, for beginners to see where they’re moving the metal.

But natural sapphires and rubies are, simply put, not stones you can
always rely on to have equal toughness to the synthetics, or to
diamonds. Some may come close, but most, I wouldn’t trust to do so,
especially if my wallet was at risk. Sapphires, in particular, I’ve
found to sometimes be surprisingly easy to chip when you least expect
it to. Usually this requires a mistake on the setters part, often a
really beginner level boneheaded mistake. But those mistakes still
break sapphires more easily than diamonds, and perhaps do so simply
because the people making those mistakes assumed the sapphire was so
durable there was no risk, and didn’t take appropriate care.

But it’s relative too, even comparing with diamond. Take a clean
well cut round sapphire and put it next to a shallow cut marquise or
pear shaped diamond with a nice sharp point, and I’ll worry a lot
more about that diamonds point than the sapphire.

I’m rambling. Time for bed. (that was the case with the last post on
this thread, too. Maybe that’s why I surprised you. My shoulder’s
been giving me a lot of pain of late, making it hard to get a good
nights sleep, and my late night typing on Orchid sometimes shows the
result… sorry.

Peter

25

The only time we ever had any kind of breakage insurance was a few
years ago when Tim had to set a $3,000,000.00 diamond. We refused to
be responsible for it. It was insured through Lloyds of London. I
believe the stone broker told us the insurance cost about $5000.00
just for that one day.

Have fun and make lots of jewelry.
Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com

26

Larry, Check into Jewelers Mutual Insurance. I just purchased
Workmanship insurance through them. I think it’s what you are looking
for. They just started carrying it. Good luck. Believe me, It doesn’t
mean you are a LOUSY stone setter if you have insurance! LOL

27 
Interesting concept.... insurance covering you for being a lousy
setter

Some gems have internal stress and putting pressure on one place can
result in the gem shattering.

I have done some gem faceting in the past and I heard stories of
large expensive tourmaline crystals that were being being prepared
for faceting by an experienced cutter, removing the outer skin caused
internal stress to be relieved and the result was that the crystal
shattered.

No person who sets gems can know the internal stresses that occur
from the growth pattern of a crystal, some gems have something
similar to a knot in a piece of wood. Some gems have cleavage planes
that are not apparent until you put pressure onit and an internal
fracture develops.

Insurance is not for being a lousy setter, it is for surprises
thatoccur from what is not observable by the human eye when skill and
knowledge are not enough.

Which gemstone is set the most? Which gemstone has a cleavage plane
that make setting triangles, marquise, pear,and most notably princess
cut much more susceptible to breakage? Diamond. I have seen a
diamond cleave while being set, an edge of the girdle breaks off, or
most of the top popped off at an angle.

I set most of my own if I have something I know I cannot
afford to replace, I have someone with insurance do the work.

Perhaps this means I am a lousy setter, but I am wise enough to
limit my liability.

Learning your limitations is part of the process, and with setting,
my experience is that there is a life long learning curve. I can
never take anything for granted regardless of what I have done in
the past.

Last but not least, removing a gem and resetting it during repair on
a piece that I did not make, I become responsible for anything that
happens as a result of how the seat was originally cut and how well
the prongs were prepared so the gem is properly supported, so pushing
a prong down does not cause the gem to shift and lead to damage from
chipping the girdle.

Richard Hart G.G.
Denver, Co.

28

Jeff, just because one carries insurance, doesn’t make them a lousy
setter. Does the fact that you carry insurance on you car make you a
lousy driver? In the jewelry world. @#$% happens! Those are the
facts. If you could put your arrogance aside for a moment you may see
that. Now that there is insurance available, it is just another tool
on ones bench for their use. If someone was a lousy setter, believe
me, they wouldn’t have the insurance for long! That’s how things work
in our fun little jewelry world. I’d love to meet you and meet the
guy who has NEVER chipped a stone while setting it. I have practiced
and practiced and have set literally THOUSANDS of stones
and guess what. @#$% HAPPENS!

29

Hi Lana,

I would agree with Gerald Lewy, in my shop it would be my problem.
The idea is though, to be so good, it doesn’t happen in the first
place. Sapphire are stable, but good setter should be able to set the
most unstable

stones without a problem. Of course if it goes to peace’s once it’s
out the door, it’s not my problem. I do warn clients that it’s bad
idea to sonic or steam the the item. I also warn the jeweller it’s
fragile and will not stand up to normal use. If they sign off, then
you set the stone. I have set stone that only held together with
wishful thinking.

Jim
Jim Zimmerman

30 
I also warn the jeweller it's fragile and will not stand up to
normal use. If they sign off, then you set the stone. I have set
stone that only held together with wishful thinking.

Lois XV once said " apres moi le deluge" and we know how well it
ended in 1789. In our case peasants probably will be using bench
shear instead of a guillotine, so it would be quite unpleasant. That
is not the path I want to be on.

Leonid Surpin