Sparkly things

[Melanie De Castro Pugh]

If you google nine2five silver, yours is the first site that appears, Pat! The paypal cart works for me too.

[Dennis]

Your comments on improving my finish would be appreciated.

Hi Pat,
I hope you won’t feel nagged to death if I chip in with some ideas on finishing. It’s a good idea to try all different tools to see which suit you best.

In your second picture, what looks like a peridot cabochon is covered by too much metal, so creating difficulty with finishing the edges. For this one I would have raised the stone with the same diameter of jump ring, which does not have to be soldered closed, or soldered in place. If you start with 1.0m mm round wire you can repeatedly rub it down until the stone looks just right before setting it.

For the bezel, I prefer to get the top edge perfectly level and bevelled to a knife edge before finally inserting the stone to set it. Once the stone has been set , my favourite tool to finish the edge is a half-round escapement file, which is quite small. The edge nearest to the stone is ground and polished, so that it won’t abrade the stone. Then using the flat side of the file, I go round several times taking care not to slip.

As for those triangular concave parts, I would tackle them with Micromesh, which is dark grey on one side and looks like abrasive paper, but is fabric backed and much softer. You want several grades of the sheet not the pads and your work will come up a treat. An alternative would be a selection of radial wheels for flex-shaft. Just coarse and medium-fine would do to start.

Regards Dennis.

[Joe]

Oh Dennis, can you share a picture of your modified file?

I'm getting quite a dab-hand with my flat-graver finishing the edges of settings, but a super-safe-edged file sounds very handy...

[Patstone]

If you google nine2five silver, yours is the first site that appears, Pat! The paypal cart works for me too.

Hi Mel, thanks for your input, I didnt realise that the Paypal bit actually worked, because when I questioned hubby about it he said that although the account is there it isnt active. I went into the site this morning early, and put a pair of earrings in the basket and tried to pay but it came up with "this website may have moved" etc. Not sure if thats just because its mine and somehow clever computer knows its only me. Sounds stupid when I read this back, but not very good at the technical side of things, give me the practical side of things any day. Quite good at DIY tho. hahaha

[Dennis]

Oh Dennis, can you share a picture of your modified file?

There is not a lot to see on a photo Joe. I bluntened the edge of the file first wth the stone and then with the rubber until it was smooth. I have tried it with other files, but this remains the favourite. Regards, Dennis.

[Joe]

Ah, just the edges of the file are smooth! Brilliant idea!

Thanks you!

Joe

[ps_bond]

The suggestion during the setting course was to stone the edges off a 3 square file and use that for filing (specifically claws in this case); 1 cat, so many ways to skin it
Oh, and cover the stone with a fingernail so that if the file slips, you're filing your nails not the stone.

[Patstone]

What nails, most of mine are either sawn, or sanded off, have yet to drill one, but as they are short anyway, A & E is only a stones throw away and my car knows
the way now.

[Melanie De Castro Pugh]

Hi Mel, thanks for your input, I didnt realise that the Paypal bit actually worked, because when I questioned hubby about it he said that although the account is there it isnt active. I went into the site this morning early, and put a pair of earrings in the basket and tried to pay but it came up with "this website may have moved" etc. Not sure if thats just because its mine and somehow clever computer knows its only me. Sounds stupid when I read this back, but not very good at the technical side of things, give me the practical side of things any day. Quite good at DIY tho. hahaha

Well, I went as far as I could without spending any actual money ;-) Doesn't sound stupid at all, my pc and the interweb seem to know what they are doing better than I do on times...

On the plus side, it's VERY good that you appear so high in Google search rankings for the name of your website, because there are an awful lot of variations of the phrase "925 silver" out there...

[Patstone]

Hi Dennis, the ring you are talking about was the first stone I set, so I am a bit better now, but I sold it and had to get it back to take a photo, hence the scratching, didnt realise it was so bad until I had given the ring back and loaded it up to the computer. May be able to make another one like it as it was one of my favourite pieces so far. Just out of interest, I have some very nice needle files sent to my from Oz by my cousin who I didnt know existed until 2 years ago, his great grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. He is in his seventies now, and his grandmother was sent to Oz in disgrace for getting pregnant before marriage, I had no idea my gran was one of eight children, I was sixteen when she died and assumed that she had just the one brother that she talked about, anyway I digress from the story, she used to make silver jewellery too how about that for a co-incidence.