soldering silver ring with sapphire in place?

[Aurarius]

I have never downsized, 3 sizes as yet, I was always told by my mentor that 3 sizes about the limit

It depends entirely on what's going on around the shank elsewhere than at the point you plan on cutting out to downsize. Here nothing's going on at all once the setting has been removed, so we could go down to an A (or smaller) if necessary.

[china]

If the setting is remove that is a completely different ball game, if the setting is removed you may as well just remake it.

[LydiaNiz]

I'd remove the stone before resizing (Dennis method) or ring Wards for another one and remake.

[Aurarius]

if the setting is removed you may as well just remake it.

I'm not sure why it'd be preferable to remake it under these circumstances. Once the setting has been removed you'll have a shank with a flat spot and blob of solder opposite the join. You can take it down three sizes at the join, clean up the flat spot with a buff stick, solder on a new bezel and insert the original stone. Buying a new stone and/or having a leftover shank seem unnecessary expense to me.

[enigma]

I just tried Dennis' method to remove an amethyst and it went well so definitely worth a try and if it fails just refer to plan B and remake the setting.
(Thank you Dennis!)

[camalidesign]

Oh dear, I seemed to have caused quite a bit of disagreement on what to do!

I am going to try to take the stone out and if that works and the setting is intact then I can just re-size the ring and re-set the stone. If however I screw up the setting and have to make a new one I might just leave the shank for another project and make a fresh one for the new bezel. It's only a silver shank so not a lot of money in there and I will no doubt set another stone into it and sell it.

The stone was bought ages ago and it wasn't expensive, hence me wanting to try and solder with it in place initially. The stones Wards have on their site are much more at much smaller sizes, so I don't think I would be able to find a stone that fits within the budget of this ring.

I will let you know how I get on when I get around to it!

Carin

[china]

My argument is that once you remove the stone then remove the setting/bezel then you have pretty well started again, so just keep that ring and make a new one