I have no idea........

What most of you are talking about. Doesn't stop me from spending hours reading it though! All part of the addiction I guess.

Quite excited today though as the secretary at work has started fusing dichroic glass and displayed her first attempts as soon as I arrived. Although I only use semi precious stones it looked so pretty I felt I needed to have a go at enhancing it.

I skived off as soon as I could and rang cooksons to add to the order I had already placed at 6.30 this morning so I could make a bezel setting to accommodate the least favourite piece for practise.

I've only made two before and they came out not too bad. I want to convince her the only way to go is to set them in silver. I will probably spend hours mucking around, getting frustrated and reaching for a bottle of wine but the challenge is what I'm up for!

If it works out I'll post a picture, if it doesn't I'll find another challenge!

Sounds good, absolutely adore dichroic glass. I saw some that someone made they looked like photos from nasa - deep purples and weird bluey grey swirls, really beautiful. Really hope you do post some photos =D

I have a lady who makes me dichroic glass to order, I seem to get a lot of requests for cufflinks using it - can be absolutely amazing looking, and simple silver settings can really show off the depth of colours - good luck!

It all went horribly wrong! I eventually got a good join with the bezel wire but then tried to solder it to a piece of sheet and realised I should have cut that smaller as the sheet took up too much of the heat so the solder didn't melt well. The bezel solder moved because of this and wasn't level on the sheet so had to abandon the whole thing.

My biggest problem is getting good joins. I'm missing something in this department, think I might have to do a course!

It happens to us all, even the ones with the training & degrees. Don't despair, keep at it. Can you try to re heat it & quickly pick of the bezel while the solder is wet, file everything back down & have another shot or have parts of it melted? If it's just a matter of soldering not working out it should be salvageable. It's all in the practise =D p.s Binding wire is your friend to stop things shifting out of place, but don't let the wire come in contact with your pickle as it can cause copper flashing

I really messed up the bezel wire and the sheet, it was like nothing I'd seen before! Spookily I had some binding wire delivered from cooksons today which I haven't tried before so I've asked her to bring a smaller piece of glass tomorrow as I don't want to waste anyone more bezel wire so will try again this weekend.

Thanks for the advice.

Best of luck with it, don't forget to let us know how you get on =D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lynn.D

as I don't want to waste anyone more bezel wire so will try again this weekend.

---

Most of us don't bother with bezel wire. It is flimsy to handle, melts easily and is mostly too wide, so generates offcuts for your scrap pot. We saw a strip from sheet instead.
I would suggest you get a piece fine silver, about 50x60mm by 0.4mm thick. There will be less waste as you can cut exactly what you need.

Complete and utter failure I'm afraid. I ordered the 0.4mm thick fine silver and must say it's much nicer to work with so will be using that for bezels in the future. As for the dichroic glass pendant the shape was just too much for me. I spent ages making the bezel and it looked great but when I put the stone in due to it's odd shape the corners when all crinkly grrrrrrrrr.
Someone rang and said can I have a ring with something dangly on it so was pleased to have the distraction otherwise I would have sulked for at least two days.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lynn.D

I spent ages making the bezel and it looked great but when I put the stone in due to it's odd shape the corners when all crinkly grrrrrrrrr.

---

Sounds like you need less height.
If your stone is too low then all the extra metal has nowhere to go & starts folding on itself.

Any chance of posting photos Lynn? it's hard to give advice without seeing what you are trying to do.


James

As Chris already said, sounds like you need less height to the bezel.
When I make bezels for objects that have an uneven surface I shape the bezel to be the same height above the surface all round rather than straight/level.
I don't know what you are working with but if it hasn't got a level surface then the bezel can't be level either.

Good point. Yes you need to follow the contour if needed.:)

I suspect you may need to take away some of the bezels at the corner, and that the corners are rounded - I only have a rubbish picture of some cufflinks from 3 years ago - but this kind of shape maybe? Attachment 8738 - the corners on these were filed away gently to avoid excess metal crimping at the corners.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LydiaNiz

I suspect you may need to take away some of the bezels at the corner, and that the corners are rounded - I only have a rubbish picture of some cufflinks from 3 years ago - but this kind of shape maybe? Attachment 8738 - the corners on these were filed away gently to avoid excess metal crimping at the corners.

---

They look amazing Lydia. I've cut the bezel off and scrapped it now but this is the stone I'm struggling with. I used 5mm wide fine silver.

Attachment 8743

No need to struggle. Steady the stone by fixing it down with blue tack. Anneal the strip and work it round to fit. It also helps if the seam of the bezel is along one side and not at a corner.

Just reduce the height of the bezel until you only have about 1.00 mm to push down all round. This might be lower at the corners.

Solder it onto a back plate and there you are ready to set it.

If the back of the glass is rounded too, it will sit better if you can cut a largish hole in the back plate, leaving just an internal ledge. Dennis.

Thank you Dennis, you've answered a burning question which was whether I should reduce the height before soldering onto the back plate.

The back of glass is flat thankfully. I've got a busy couple of weeks until the school breaks up for Easter so I'm going to have another go then. I'm not giving up!

OK One last thing then: once the back plate is on, you will be keen to try the glass in again, but in the absence of a hole you need to make provisions to yank it out if needed.

An easy way is to lay some dental floss across the bottom first, with two long ends to pull on. Dennis.

This seems quite challenging, but all the very best.