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Jewelry Discussion
21 
   I just wanted to let you know that i have used the bezel
punches for years in volume production cast 14k gold and
sterling. We hammer the bezels over with these tools and have
never broken one. I also occasionaly mount them in a drill
press and with the motor on... bear down on the setting to
burnish the settings over the stones.

I stand corrected, then. My own use of hammers with these
things, when I first got a set convinced me that using them with
the rocking motion I described was more efficient. Less force
required, and I liked the look better. Budonā€™t get 70 stones
per hour, either. Maybe I was being too vigorous with the
hammer, or maybe my set of punches wasnā€™t as good as yours. I
found, using white gold bezels, that the amount of hammering
required to move the metal would occasionally break the punches.
I only broke two, though, before deciding to stop doing thatā€¦
For those heavy bezels, I now just use a hammer handpiece, and
use the punches only to help clean up the bezelā€™s shape once
itā€™s already set.

  another trick i have is to use a Diamond burr and remove the
center of the bezel punch (deepen the center) to greatly
reduce the posibility of damaging stones ( i also modified a
set this way to set cabochon stones as well) typically we do
runs of 500 to 1000 pcs setting close to 70 stones an hour.
just thought i'd let you know.

Iā€™ve tried two modifications of these punches, both of which
worked well for me. In one, I ground a series of radial grooves
into the inside surface, and polished them. This made it a much
more agressive burnishing tool when run in a flex shaft. Instead
of just a smooth rotating surface doing little other than
generating friction, the bumps made it act as a series of actual
burnishing tools rotating around the bezel. The other trick I
did was to take a thin (.009") seperating disk and cut an angled
slot across the wall of the punch, and then take a hard burnisher
on the inside of the wall, running it down the slit, to raise a
burr on the trailing edge of the slit. That turns it from a
burnishing tool into a single edge milling cutter, which shaves
down the outside bevel of an overly heavy bezel rather
agressively when used in the flex shaft.

But Iā€™ll stick with my recommendation to at least get used to
using this tool manually before getting to agressive with it in a
drill press or flex shaft. Among other things, used manually, you
have great control over the tool, and itā€™s results. Once you
learn it this way, you always have the option to use it in other
ways. If the only way a jeweler gets used to using it is with a
power tool, then the chances of someone going back to the manual
ā€œharderā€ method is slimmer, and thatā€™s a loss, I think.

Thanks for the comment.

Peter Rowe

22

Hello all, and too you Peter Rowe. Iv been reading most of the
posts on tub settings, and flush settings (gypsy). Tube setting
one uses a tube that is 1/2 MM bigger than the stone is. This
leaves a 1/4 MM wall to move.

Thus you donā€™t have the crimping problem and you donā€™t need to
come out with the heave tools. I like to use the (punches) cup
burnishers for tube setting . Though if Im looking for a heave
look in my setting I will make the tube larger and (gypsy) set
it.

True
23 
   ...I find that the thickness of the tube wall and the
projected height over the stone are the critical
considerations. The higher the wall over the stone  the easier
it is to close the bezel but more stone is covered with metal
than desired and then you have to bright cut back with a flat
graver..tricky.

I find that if the wall height is too much more than required to
give the desired final result without trimming, then although the
front edge of the tube moves nicely, there is an increased
tendancy for it to not be tight right down at the edge of the
girdle, so that sometimes, once itā€™s been trimmed back with your
graver, it then turns out to be loose again. I prefer to leave
only a little more height above the girdle than required, so
little trimming is needed. Then, instead of a little point
burnisher made from a broken burr, as you mention, I make one
from a short piece of 1/8 inch carbide rod, ground and polished
to that same sharp bullet point youā€™re using. It leaves a nicer
finish than the steel burnisher, with less effort. I use it with
enough pressure to not only clean up the inside ā€œreflectorā€ wall,
but also to be pushing it down and back toward the girdle, which
gets it very tight to the stone. Almost never need to trim the
edge with a graver when I get it right. The modified bezel
closing punch that I mentioned, with the cut in the wall to make
it a milling cutter, is what I use when I need to thin the bezel
in order to get it to move over, just as youā€™re using your cup
bur. Advantages are a constant angle to the cut, but itā€™s a
minor detail, and if youā€™ve got a cup bur the right size already,
thatā€™s fine too.

One poster mentioned chucking longer tubes into the flex shaft
and spinning the stones in. Gee. Iā€™m glad Iā€™m not the only one
doing this! Obviously, itā€™s not always possible, but when it is,
it sure can be fast, and produces really wonderfully uniform and
perfect bezels. I use slightly different tools, though, than the
prior poster. I cut the seat in the tube with a bud or ball
burr, which leaves a slightly tapered hole. So the diamond jams
really tight into it, when pushed down with a piece of brass rod
mounted in a graver handle. No slop. Seems tight even before the
wall is pushed over. You have to be quite careful to push the
stone down level, though, since this type of seat is not self
leveling.

I cut a groove in my bench pin that the end of the tube, diamond
and all, can rest in, so as it turns, itā€™s held running very true
at that end, even if the tube itself isnā€™t quite straight (as it
may not be, since I make my own much of the time.) I roll the
bezel wall over to the stone while the tube spins with a
straight, unmodified prong pusher, which is just a square steel
rod, flat on the end. A bit of Burr life or saliva to lubricate
it as it moves over. Takes just a second or two. Here, itā€™s
critical not to have any more wall height than needed, or the
stone can loosen.

Once the wall is over to the stone, or almost so, I then use
that same carbide point burnisher mentioned above to tuck the
inside surface of the wall back into a nice tight reflector, and
then again on the outside bevel, to sharpen it up too. Leaves a
really crisp and bright bezel. A milgrain tool can be held
against the spinning edge too, if you want, it it too will work
MUCH better than it does on manually rotated bezels, especially
with small sizes.

You can also the use a saw frame with the blade reversed ( teeth
pointing up) agaist the tube, below the stone at whatever height
you want, to cut the stone and bezel off the longer tube. gives
you a very straight and level cut. A small film can, with a slot
for the saw blade, gets held over the bezel, since when the saw
breaks through, the bezel will try to fly rapidly away. The
plastic film can (one of the transparent ones) will keep it
within your control. This is a great way to rapidly set a lot of
small very shallow bezels, such as when making the ā€œdiamonds by
the yardā€ type of necklacesā€¦

About the only real down side is that because Iā€™m using a
carbide tipped burnisher, for really bright surfaces, itā€™s also a
good deal more of a hassle to resharpen/repolish the burnishers,
and spinning the diamonds against the tip does rather quickly
damage the tips of the burnishers. But I make these things in
multiples. I use short lengths of carbide, actually broken
carbide circuit board drills that I bought a bunch of at surplus,
and the drill portions break if you even look at them crosseyed,
so I end up with a bunch of these bits of carbide with one end
slightly ground to a blunt cone. Easy enough to take em to my
lapidary wheels, put a nice tapered bullet point on both ends.
With several of these double ended points sitting on my bench (I
hold them in a chuck similar to a beading tool handle), I can
usually find one end good enough for whatever I happen to be
doing, and every few months, the whole bunch of them go home
with me (to the lapidary grinder in the basement) for
resharpeningā€¦

Hope this helps.

Peter Rowe

1 Like
24

Typo correction Re; Tube settings,The bur I recommend for
thinning down the wall of the tube projecting over the stone,
before attempting to set the stone is a CUP bur not a ball bur,
Stanley R.Rosenberg

25

Heidi, Can you tell how you are going to set the tube set stones?

I made a necklace with 30 tube settings and could not get enough
pressure to roll the tubes properly once the tube was cut and
soldered. It was most difficult to hold the settings which were only
1/4 high. I was able to do several for another piece by leaving the
tube long, cutting the stone seat in the end, chucking the tube in a
vise and spinning the tube shut with a formed piece of titanium
tubing running in a slowed down hand drill. Then cutting to length,
soldering. Good thing cubics will tolerate the operation. Only lost
one of the stones.

I made my own tubing using 20g stock for both 6.5 mm and 5 mm
brilliant cut cubics. Tubes were 6 inches long so there was plenty
to chuck in the vise. Not hard to do just a lot of work. A set of
die transfer punches from Harbor Freight is great for straightening
the tubes.

Ya Ta
Bill in Vista

26

tube settings, like take your stone, 6mm, 1/2mm thickness for final
wall so add 1mm you want to burr half of the wall, so use 5 1/2mm
times 3.14 =21.98, take a piece of sheet 1mm thick, figure out how
deep you stone is and how deep you will have to bur, and cut a strip
21mm long by lets say 4mm wide, solder together ends, round out on
small round mandrel, set the stone over the tube and judge whether to
big, cut down or to small, stretch up on a small round mandrel. bur
seat, make a mold if you have moldmaking and casting capability
(adjusting for mold and casting shrinkage) you may have to sand or
file outside of tube to make it thin enough to push over, you may
need to anneal if you stretch it up. there probably is a more exact
calculation, my math skills suck and this gets me really close.
richard hart, denver

27

my math was off on the tubesetting fabrication, for the 5.5mm stone
it should have been 17.27, the formula for a ring blank is ,inside
diameter + thickness of metal times 3.14, just adjust for the amount
to seat the stone and the thickness of the wall after you burr, happy
tubing. richard hart, denver

28

I recently bought a hammer handpiece for my Foredom. I primarily use
it to close tube settings, although it certainly is capable of doing
much more. It is absolutely wonderful. I highly recommend it. You
have to be really careful not to exceed the recommended rpm, unless
you have one of those dials to override the foot pedal. But the
precision is excellent, and it makes really light work of closing a
tube setting. This way you could work with just about any stone, as
long as you donā€™t hit the stone. I, too, am not representing the
company ā€“ just a satisfied customer.

ginger meek allen
Little Cottage Studio
Wake Forest, NC, USA