Beaten by bezel

[JonLendrum]

Thanks for all the comments and advice, sorry about this post. It was just soo frustrating, im going to get back to it tonight and hopefully you wont be hearing my tools flying from the window! Thanks guys

[LydiaNiz]

don't be sorry, hope you had better luck today Jon. I was thinking today how very, very far I have to go to get where I want to be in making jewellery, and how long it's taken me (learning as I bumble along) to get to this point. Frustrating indeed!

[Goldsmith]

Jon, May I ask what you are making that requires this bezel set stone? I was wondering if your design would allow a slightly different type of bezel setting. I see that the stone is only 7mm x 5mm, I don't know about your piercing skills but in the past I have made settings for small oval cabs by placing the stone on a piece of 2mm. silver sheet, scribing round the stone, piercing out the sheet to fit the stone, then I use dividers to scribe a line around the piercing to whatever thickness you want for the bezel, then I would solder this pierced bezel onto a backing plate, file around the bezel to clean it up, then if you need to you can pierce out the centre of the backplate if you need the light to shine through the stone, or just leave the backplate on then solder it to the item before prep. polishing and finally setting the stone before final polishing.
Sorry if this is too much info.

James

[Summer]

Hope you managed to get a good one done jon, very frustrating, we all have those days i'm sure. :-)
I use both sterling silver and fine silver, if i've run out of fine silver i make my own by running a piece of SS sheet through the mill to thin it down then cutting it to the height wanted, if i make a high bezel i use a jump ring inside to lift the stone.

[Ebo Von Gaz]

I can totally empathise with you on this, especially from an entirely self taught point of view. There are just times when you need to go and put the kettle on, look at you favourite jewellery making forum and then come back to what feels like a new job, after crying on the shoulders of some sympathetic, like minded souls for a while! You're learning a skilled trade, this is the (occasionally teeth-grindingly frustrating) process.

[JonLendrum]

First of all thanks for all the advice and support i really do love this forum!

So following on from last time, i had made the bezel and soldered it to the shank. I bought myself a great gemstone setting book with really good step by step guides. So taking on board advice from here and the book i set the stone last night.

It start off fine pushing the walls north, south, east west and continuing round until the there were no gaps. The stone was very secure and i thought it was going well. The edge closest to the stone looked uneven from where i think I've rolled over the wall too much and what only can be described as the metal looked squashed and had thinned out. In my book it says to run the tip of the burnisher along the inside of the bezel to clean it up. I was thinking before i tired that i didn't understand how this would work as there is no room to get into the inside of the bezel.

Anyway i tried it and the setting is an absolute embarrassment. I've not only got the most uneven scrappy edge but i think I've damaged the emerald as well by scratching it as i was so desperately trying to flatten the crappy edge.

Could somebody tell me where it all went wrong please, im thinking that i pushed to hard and made it to uneven to rescue with the burnisher.

I presume I've just got to cut the setting off the shank and start again with a new stone...

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[ps_bond]

Which book have you gone for?

When pushing the bezel over, you need to use the same force each time; depending on the thickness of the bezel, you can pre-bevel the inside edge with a graver or a rubber abrasive point (not really worthwhile on very thin strip IMO).

Be aware of the hardness of your stones... If the burnisher is harder than the stone, it will probably scratch the stone. If it's the other way round, the stone will scratch the burnisher, but you can repolish that easily. Again, if it's a thin bezel there's not a lot of room.

I've just had a batch of setting work in where all the stones were sapphires & diamonds so no problems with burnishers. The problem I did hit was the heavily included tsavorite that broke in half when I poked it with a fingernail...

[JonLendrum]

Its gemstone setting by Anastasia young.

I've definitely scratched th side of the stone. Yeah I've made the mistake that there was one side that had a tiny tiny gap that wasn't closing up and admittedly i did push a little harder to try and close it.

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[ps_bond]

You might get away with using some diamond polishing paste to get the scratch out. Depends on the value of the stone & the time it would take..

I've got that one too; it's very nice on the eye candy, but I did feel it was a little sparse on the actual setting techniques.

[Gemsetterchris]

Sounds like you were going about the setting ok.
Ideally you want to make sure the top of the bezel is level, smooth & consistent thickness before you start...as well as the stone being a good depth (which will depend on the shape of the cab).

Trick is to move the metal without squashing it, which is easily done.

Burnishing...nothing wrong with that, but like i`ve said many times.. use copper or brass for softer stones or you will scratch them.