DIAMOND HEDGEHOG! IDIOT attempts to set a precious stone! Needs help!

[moif]

I’ve made two jewelry pieces in my entire life and my lovely lovely wife, bless her, still wears both of them!

One was the ‘diamond hedgehog’ (a world’s first?) see pic. I saw the Hedgehog graphic on the net, cut it into a flat silver piece, cut another silver square and sandwiched a piece of hardwood in between and voila! Then, I thought, hey it would be way more fun to make it a DIAMOND hedgehog necklace, by adding a real diamond in the eye! So I did. However partly being a cheapskate but also because I thought “I totally have NO idea what I’m doing so the diamond will probably fall out VERY quickly"(It hasn’t…) I bought a teency weency weency diamond on Cooksongold… LOL! Being a dumbass I didn’t realise I was buying a diamond ‘speck’… So basically I Araldite’d the sucker in there and it looks, well… pretty crappy. Although the rest of it I AM still pretty darn proud of! I know you'll look at it a laugh...




So, moving on and reason for post... I’ve since acquired an old gold ring with some real diamonds in it (see below) that are more than ‘specks’ YAY! Of course you take the thing to a jeweler to sell it and they say “we’ll give you the value of the gold but the diamonds aren’t worth anything to us" How does THAT work by the way??






So of course I go "I guess… I’ll just keep it then thanks!" But now I’m thinking the ring is just sitting around let’s just use one of the diamonds and give that hedghog a new eye! A REAL diamond pendant where she doesn’t have to explain EVERY time… “yeah my hubby made this for me, the sweetie… it’s a diamond pendant you know! But the ‘diamond’ IS really really really small so you sorta can’t-actually-see-it…”



So, CAN I just drill a slightly bigger hole, in the eye, and just Araldite the new stone in!? Is that both an idiotic and sacrilegious thing to ask on a jewelry forum? Anyone want to offer guidance on ‘setting’ a proper stone in that little hedgehog eye socket!!?? Or any other advice?!



Thanks folks!

[enigma]

Im not laughing, he's cute and you did a neat job.
How thick is the silver sheet on the top?
You certainly could drill out and araldite in but it would be somewhat sacrilegious I think, far better to flush set it properly.
There are several decent videos on youtube showing how to flush set, the main thing is getting exactly the right size burr so the hole is exactly the right size.

[josef1]

Hi , The glue will make the stone look bad



you dont need all the fancy air tools just a drill a couple of burrs and a polished blunt pointed rod like an old burr shaft then run it round the outside of the stone, its important to get a good fit between the stone and the metal so you will need a way of measuring this a digital caliper is great.

[moif]

Thanks Enigma, I'll do some youtube searching on flush setting etc.

The sheet is only .5-.7 mm if I can remember... I can't get calipers on the end as it's sort of flush and it's prob thinned out a bit at the edges too from excessive polishing when I made it!

Speaking of videos... THANKS(!) josef1 but having looked at that and the great youtube comments for it... I realise I have no clue what they're all talking about OR indeed what I'm doing... lol! I'm looking at it thinking how DOES that darn stone stay in there without some sorta glue! So I'm obviously not getting it doh!

Guess I'm gonna have to read some more you guys... I know what i'll prob end up doing in frustration.... oh just glue the darn thing in the hole... it's better than a diamond 'speck' that's there now... and what's the worse thing that can happen... the pesky thing falls out! VERY amateur night ....

maybe not... I dunno...

THANKS though you guys!

[Dennis]

No when you glue a faceted stone, you alter the refraction and loose the glitter.
This is why man made stones intended for glueing, have reflective foiled backs.
Not available in precious stones here, but adding foil is an ancient technique in India. Dennis.

[moif]

Ahhhhh I see... thanks Dennis! Makes sense now you point it out. Josef was telling me the same thing, I see that now.

Now, for me anyway, is how to set a diamond in my thin silver/wooden back piece... I'll keep reading and trying to learn.

Thanks everyone

[Dennis]

A compromise would be to tube set the stone in a short section of tube. Not difficult to learn if you watch some videos and practice with cheap CZs first.

Then you drill an accurate hole for the tube and glue in the set tube. Dennis

[misspond]

"I'm looking at it thinking how DOES that darn stone stay in there without some sorta glue! So I'm obviously not getting it doh!"

The thing with flush setting is that you have to get the hole for the stone just right so that when you run a burnisher around the edge there is just a fine rim of metal holding the stone in. So it's worth practising first as has been suggested. I read a lot of posts here and watched a few clips before I was confident enough to try it, and then I spent a day practicing before I attempted it in a piece of jewellery. I'm about 5 years away from perfecting the technique.

[enigma]

I think 0.5mm would be thick enough to set it in as long as you go carefully and get the depth right.

[moif]

Thanks again everyone!

I'll try something eventually... then I'm gonna have a go at lighting the bad boy up like the amazing Mr Kokes did!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...-close-by.html

Ok I'm not really but you guys should!