barrette file worth keeping?

[Sheen]

Accidently ended up with a grade 2 barrette needle file from my recent order. Already got a grade 4. Is it worth keeping? I love using my grade 4 for bezel settings. What do you use your grade 2 for?

[Dennis]

Depend on how tight your budget is, Sheena. You will find a use for it sometime, when you need a more rapid reduction. Dennis.

[china]

What Dennis said

[Sheen]

I think I've decided to keep it. Been making a few mistakes recently due to headache. Thanks China and Dennis. Hope you're both enjoying making things at the moment.

[Sheen]

I've used the number 2 barrette file already to shape the prongs on this sea glass ring, my first soldered ring. I struggled to get the ends of my prongs completely flat to the stone, they are 0.8mm silver wire, when pressing down it's tending to push the base of the prong (near the ring shaft) away from the stone because I kept my prongs just holding onto the stone. Hope that makes sense.

12560

[Dennis]

What to do Sheena, is to cut inside the prong with a thickish saw blade (say2/0) to weaken it, just where you want it to bend.
It doesn't need much: a groove you can just see. Then the upright part won't bend.
It's quite tricky understanding where the groove needs to be, so you have to experiment.
Later on you can get more sophisticated and convert the groove to an angle using a file. Dennis.

[Sheen]

What to do Sheena, is to cut inside the prong with a thickish saw blade (say2/0) to weaken it, just where you want it to bend.
It doesn't need much: a groove you can just see. Then the upright part won't bend.
It's quite tricky understanding where the groove needs to be, so you have to experiment.
Later on you can get more sophisticated and convert the groove to an angle using a file. Dennis.

Thanks, Denis I hadn't thought of that. I realised doing this one that if you're going to make your prongs long and pointy, I'm going to have to make sure they're really flat to the stone or they will get caught on peoples clothing and get pulled out of position. I've really fallen in love with doing prong settings. But there's a lot less info out there than there is on bezels. :ta:

[misspond]

There's quite a lot of info on YouTube particularly if you look for claw setting as well as prong setting. It's something I've not tried yet but I daresay I'll be brave enough to have a go at some point.

[Sheen]

There's quite a lot of info on YouTube particularly if you look for claw setting as well as prong setting. It's something I've not tried yet but I daresay I'll be brave enough to have a go at some point.

I just love planning where to put the prongs, there's two videos I really rate, one is by Kim 12 months of metal on kernow crafts tutorials section, the other on you tube is by joe silvera, https://youtu.be/f6niqvX4vvY