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[enigma]

Aurarius is quite correct of course but personally I think it would be more fun to do when you get back from the pub LOL
Do be careful not to set the house alight though......
Personally I like to use gravity and balance the settings on top of the shank rather than fix in any way but they do often move as the solder flows- I adjust them at this point with the solder pick.
Not saying this is right, just what works ok for me.
Don't forget to re do the flux if you try to melt the solder.

[Faith]

Thanks Sarah and Aurarius

Im not sure it's my weekend!

I had another crack today, firstly looking at my sad little ring I decided to have another go entirely. One side of the new ring soldered fine the other distorted rather badly (despite being anealed). Anyway trying trying to squash it back into shape while it was hot was not the answer, it broke in two

So i returned to yesterday's ring and tried as you said Aurarius, to reflow the solder and true it. That actually worked reasonably well (I didn't think my torch would do it), it's not perfect but more "get the spirit level out" to tell its wonky, rather than the leaning tower of tube ring. Unfortunately reflowing it blew some solder out onto the setting, and I made a mess trying to tidy it up, parts of it are rather over polished now, and there's still some tiny solder bumps left.

I got this far anyway:



Before I mostly packed up and decided to just give one of my finished rings a quick polish (i'd scratched it slightly wearing it), and somehow made it a whole lot worse with a pink silicon wheel! The dremel was fully charged and the wheel just reshaped so all in all it was much too feisty for a tiny touch up Eventually I mostly fixed it, and realised as I was giving it a final rub with a polishing pad that maybe that would have been the thing to reach for in the first place! Moron girl!

Well everything's a lesson

Faith

PS the stone isn't set yet, it's just sitting in there.

[Aurarius]

It looks promising, Faith. Have you still got to burr out the inner wall of your bezel to seat the stone or have you done that already?
When you do come to set the stone, make sure the bezel is well supported before you start pushing on the top rim, otherwise it may distort. Also don't try re-rounding the ring at this stage on a triblet, or you're likely to make the bottom of your nice round bezel oval-shaped.

[Patstone]

I like it and would wear it happily if thats any consolation. Making jewellery is always a learning curve as everything seems a challenge sometimes, and I have learned by experience, if it doesnt work the first time, put it away for a while and do something else, then come back to it later.

[Faith]

Thanks Pat its going to be for one of my friends if it works - I'd had the stone for ages but am not wild about that shade of topaz myself, whereas she loves it, so I figured I'd set it for practice and made her a gift of it.

I think you're quite right though, sometimes you just need to put things to one side and come back with a fresh mind .

Faith

[Faith]

Thanks Aurarius,

The stone seat is already burred out on that one. It was my very first "burring" and I did it by hand. For ages the stone wouldn't go in, but now it almost seems tighter at the top than it is when its down in its seat. I also think I may have used the ball burr too much and swapped to setting burr too late, as the stone will sit flat, but if you poke it it can also slide and sit wonky. Any idea what I've done wrong?

Good tip on supporting the bezel - could this be an embed in thermoloc with just its snout poking out job?

Also thanks for the triblet tip, I could well have done that and wouldn't have thought about the base of the setting stretching.

Thanks again,

Faith

[Aurarius]

For ages the stone wouldn't go in, but now it almost seems tighter at the top than it is when its down in its seat. I also think I may have used the ball burr too much and swapped to setting burr too late, as the stone will sit flat, but if you poke it it can also slide and sit wonky. Any idea what I've done wrong?

Good tip on supporting the bezel - could this be an embed in thermoloc with just its snout poking out job?

If it slides around and doesn't always want to sit level, this probably means it has a little bit too much room to move about in at the spot where it comes to rest and/or the seat isn't perfectly level. If, in addition, the profile of the seat isn't quite a match for the pavilion profile of the stone this will probably exaggerate the impact of either of the first two defects.

There's a lot to get right in setting, and it's very easy to go wrong, so don't be disheartened. No pain, no gain.

Thermoloc/polymorph up to halfway up the bezel would be the safest approach, probably, but you might easily get away with the ring inserted all the way into a ring clamp or benchmate so that the underside of the bezel is supported on the top edge of the closed jaws of the clamp. It depends how much force you're going to need to exert on the bezel to move enough metal over the stone.

It would be nice to see the finished item.

[Faith]

Thanks Aurarius,

That makes sense - I had to wiggle the setting bur a bit to open the top up enough, probably what I needed was a slightly bigger burr, but just starting burring I had only the two (round and setting) bought for that stone. Thinking about it tho, wiggling the setting bur may have enlarged the inside a bit more than the top, making my wobble.

Do you think its retrievable? I shouldn't scrap pot it and have a third go?

I have thrmoloc and the grs vice so I'll try that, funnily I adore the benchmate system but didn't buy an actual bench mate thingy (the ring holder part) I have the peg, the robot arm soldering station and the vice. Do you recommend the ring grabber?

Will definitely post a pic when done

Thanks for all your help,

Faith

[Faith]

*Waves to Dennis*

Hello

Aurarius has given me some great advice about my setting - to actually set it, given my wobbly problem, I was thinking to try your plier method, but I'm struggling to see it in my head. I understand the principal, but is there any more you can explain about how you move the pliers to secure the stone?

Thanks loads

Faith

[Dennis]

For faceted stones the general idea is:

Make sure the table of your stone is more or less level with the rim.
File the outside of the rim to a knife edge, so that it is thin but not ragged.
Keep the stone steady with a finger nail.
Pinch the edge over the girdle first N, then S, then E&W and so on. For this I use round nosed pliers, with one side slightly flattened.

Practice with short bits of tubing in your mitre block and cheap CZs.

If this method does not suit you, look at tutorials on U Tube. Dennis.