Flush Setting A Faceted Stone.
Dear Sarah,
With small stones like this you can do a flush setting without removing any external metal. The stones should fit well in their holes and their girdles be about a quarter of a millimetre below the metal edge. Some setters raise a little rim around the edge of the hole by inserting a beak of some pointy flat(snipe nosed) pliers and rotating, but this requires practice.
Ideally you now push the rim of metal a little way onto the stone, first North and South then East and West, then points in between. But you only use short strokes, doing as little damage to the surroundings as possible, so there is hardly any cleaning up.
Here is the pusher I made for this on a stone setting course, but you might be able to grind something similar from a bought bezel pusher. When the stone is set and resists removal with a clean bit of Blue-Tack you can finish the metal rim with a tiny ball burnisher or the tip of an old burr with the head broken off and polished. Don’t be disappointed if this takes many experiments before you get it right . Try it on some copper which is cheaper fist. Kind regards, Dennis.