Stone setting liability

Many years ago I knew a setter in Hatton Garden in London. He’s been
working for over 50 years and was one of the best. He used to do all
my settings for me. I still hate setting expensive stones.

One day I called at his workshop and it was closed. I knew he’d been
ill, heart problems, so I asked around. Sure enough he’s decided to
retire.

He’d had a large yellow topaz to set for someone. Halfway through the
stone had snapped - as topaz has a tendency to do. He’d put down his
tools and never returned to the bench. He told me later “I just
listened to my heart thumping away and thought - this is stupid. What
a way to make a living”

Tony Konrath
Electric Pencil
1002 Fleming Street
Key West
Florida 33040
USA

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I just finished reading a biography of one of my favorite opera
singers, Eileen Farrell. She was making some records at the age of
75 when she found that her engineer in the control booth had to keep
giving her a thumb up sign when she wavered off pitch because of poor
breath support. She decided it was time to quit. When we feel we
can’t live up to our own accustomed standard, sometimes we opt out.
Maybe we need to exercise more, most “aging” is really just getting
out of shape, which is more and more important as we age (and sit on
our butts!). I suppose there comes a time to move on to something
else, but I suspect that a lot of this “retiring” is just that,
shrinking from the challenge because we are getting out of shape and
depressed.

Stonesetting, as detailed in this thread, certainly is a ridiculous
occupation. I don’t know why anyone would do it, but then, I don’t
know why anyone would climb Mount Everest, but many people do, and
you know what they say . . . “because it was there.” So, it’s a
challenge, but watch out if you can’t enjoy a challenge any more . .
. . . you might be dead. Just don’t be foolish and accept liability
for things you shouldn’t, 'cause the stress of that will take the fun
out of it, and that will kill you.

Off Soapbox,
Roy

Tell me about it! Just set an 8 carat diamond today with surface
breaking inclusions. Probably not a real serious risk all in all,
especially in a platinum head that fit well. Only a few moments
where I could taste bitter adrenaline. Whenever I’ve broken a stone,
especially a costly one, it’s always felt like the back of my shirt
suddenly burst into flames. I’ve never totaled anything really
expensive, but I set a lot of pricey stones on a regular basis, so
tradgedy does occaissionally strike. Here’s the best one. I had
sucessfully set a 2.5 carat stone, down in color around J-K, but
clean. Problem was, it had a razor sharp girdle, already bearing
minor chips. I was straightening the shank of the ring (old ring,
new prongs), up near the head, when that sharp girdle barely came in
contact with the steel chasing tool and bit into the steel, breaking
a clean shard down to the culit. We sent it for re-cutting, and
believe it or not, it came back missing about .15 carats but with a
better grade! Man, what a cutter this guy is! Seems a better cut
and the elimination of a couple visible inclusions increased the
value of the stone by $1500. Go figure. On the other hand, 2 weeks
ago, I saw a small scratch on the surface of a tanzanite I was about
to set, value about $1000 wholesale. I thought I’d be a hero and
polish it out. Probably due to a minor vibration and inherent
stresses from heat treating, the stone suddenly split in two. Now I
have two stones worth about $500 and $250, but I figure it’s like
this . . . Whereas I could have retailed the one for close to $2000,
now I can only make $1500 for the new ones. So we’re not really
losing money in the end, only not making what we had hoped for.
Could have been a customer would have beaten us up on a low sales day
and took the original stone for $1500 anyway. My point is, sometimes
breakage isn’t always as bad as it looks. Hey, the only way to make
really sure you won’t break `em is to not set any.

David L. Huffman

Larry, There are only two types of stone setters: A.those who broke
stones. B.those who will break stones. Sometimes you have to bite the
bullet.
Gaby.