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Making the Bezel

Lesson 3 from: Intermediate Bezel Setting for Jewelry Making

Bonnie Heras

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Lesson Info

3. Making the Bezel

Next Lesson: Soldering the Bezel

Lesson Info

Making the Bezel

So now we're ready to make our puzzle who? Okay, so we're going to be using this stone here now this is also referred to as a kabash on setting and what that means is that that's actually what that's type of cut of this stone is when it has a flat bottom and has a curve surface no facet is referred to as a kabash on stone or once again that's what it is also called the kabash on setting basil settings kind of a rougher term for it so we need to determine the proper height for our stone's how do we were going to create a ring? Essentially that's what? Abed eliza ring there's one premade here by my go over the process um that goes around the edge here supported that's what it is basically they were gonna push these walls over once it's been actually saw turd on and set this piece that's how you set it by pushing the walls over. So right now they're stripping down the walter straight we're gonna angle them so that they could kind of grip think of houses basically a really long prongs airw...

ay familiar with prongs setting has a little teeth like that they're straight and then they bent over like this and so and that's basically a wall that goes all the way around like a princess of hitting in certain spots so we that's, what about soliciting does so we're going to push those walls like a prongs are pushed over and kind of create that secure space for the stone itself. So how do you determine how tall that wall needs to be? All right, so you're going to take her stone, you kind of get a close up on this so stones you wanted to grip onto the curvature so you can see in this particular shown the way it's cut it's different for every stone. So when you do this, it's hard to buy premade vessels because stones, unless they're manufactured, tend to have irregularities to him, so you need to measure it every time. So the curve here where it starts to curve, you know that that prawn, if you will, congrats on too that curve, so you're like, ok, it needs to be about that hide. You can see the transition in the curvature of the stone right there, so I'll take a divider and place it here and be like, ok, by tightening it down, this is the ones already set, and I'll know that that's how tall it needs to be. I've measured this damage okay? Hits this curvature of the stone right there the top one does so I know that that's going to grip onto my stone well, the taller the wall the more of the stone gets covered that's the only thing you can make it taller but then you'll hide your stone if it's not tall enough your stone could potentially fallout later so the correct height does matter. So now that I have that I could but take my basil wire now there's a wire it's just it's actual fine silver not sterling silver puzzle wire that we're using and you could buy pre made they come in different wits. This one happens to be a little taller than when I need it to be and so I can actually take my tool here and run it along this edge and score a line you can kind of see here into my metal azzurri scored line down over here and then I can trim this down to the heights that I needed to be. Now, this is twenty eight gauge, very thin sheet so I can actually use hand shears like this like scissors and just trim it just like that we'll have a little extra now how long do I need it? Like I need to make it wrap around the entire stone so what I'm gonna dio is khun roughly see that that's fairly long enough you could take a piece of string if you want to and wrap it around the edge of it to give you a rough kind of template before you cut your medal looking at what I've cut already I'm I just cut a hair more and it's fine if it's too long we're going to cut it down so it'll fit so I missed was step off that whole thing snipped that off that out of our way and if you already know what the hype is or if the company that you're getting the stone from sometimes the companies will tell you if it is a manufactured mass produce kind of cut stone that you can kind of figure out the height then you could know what proper heights device you always have to cut it down like I just did so now I'm gonna take my wire now I want my joint to not be at the top points that's where a lot of tensions gonna happen so I'm not going to start my start my joint back here I'm gonna start here in the middle a broader area where he can kind of take the shaping so I was going to shave it with my fingers pushing it around like that till it wraps around no I don't want there to be any gaps so I'm kind of just looking like all right I knew I had too much so I'm gonna grab a sharpie it's better to have too much than too little kind of roughly mark where they cross over right there and snip go back to my stone and see how type that is now when you look straight down on it, you don't want there to be any gaps. The idea is that when you properly make a best a lso hears our pre made one here you should be able to drop it on and that when you pick it up it should drop right out so this one right here that I made already let's see actually it's right here so that should lift like that that's the proper size see how just lives right off that's perfect now let's say I shape it here it's a little tight I could fussed with it a bit more, but I can go ahead and slaughter this now once again I'm making another but joint and many but joint like I just did with my ring so I want this to come straight across you couldn't choose pliers to shape this because it is such a thin wire but you don't need to get into the heavy duty tools and then it'll be straight across from itself like that now you don't have to worry about it being tio like off like you see it's a little bit longer on this one side um we'll clean that up later so the whole process that you saw me do with the ring itself is is pretty much like okay, I can do the exact same process for doing this you have a smaller flame in a smaller piece of sauder so I'm not going to quite go through the step of saw during that close but the way the ring was done I would set it up in the same way I would put flux there I put it in the third arm like that I would circle around what the flux put it about a piece of sauder he's them in here I would say if you can manage it half the size of this one I'm touching right here because you have a thing that's barely this so much little metal there you do not need a lot of soccer once it's been sawed erred quench pickle then you're going to take it so let's say here I'll crumple this one okay, so we need to reshape this. All right? So it comes out of the pickle it's fine, I want to use the stone to shape it so I'm gonna push this around to shape it. You can actually use other tools to kind of get the shape going there the way you want now you want to make sure don't collapse it on the stone so I'm just kind of pushing up against it now, I mean, collapse that I mean, you don't want to lean in like this, you want the walls to stay upright, but I wanted to fit around the stone perfect because we have sought or its to its base kind of flip it over and using the stone to create the shape. So if it's all crumpled, we're doing that d shape again. If you remembered it's going a bit misshapen, so and you could do the soft material, any soft material accuse the end of this pin to kind of create my shape on some people on all reference other tools later we'll use, like, uh, for for their setting tools will use, like old toothbrush and cut the head off of it. And I'm gonna actually I didn't bring mine, but, um but there is the basic shape we want because you wanted to be the shape that it's going to be, um once for ah, for the setting, because once it's ordered to its base like that, if you cannot change the shape it all it's perfectly there, so it needs to be the exact shape of stone, so let's do that.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Bonnie Heras - Determining Ring Blank Lengths.pdf
Bonnie Heras - Ring with Bezel Pattern.pdf
Bonnie Heras - Intermediate Bezel Setting Supply List.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

user-305b18
 

The content was good but could not see some of the techniques. Maybe use of the overhead camera positioned over the work space would have helped. Overall a good class.

Maggy Mason-Hughes
 

The instructor was excellent but the camera work was not! This is a detailed technique, suggest the camera person get an idea of what they are filming and do better close ups of the important techniques. If I didn't know a bit about bezel setting, this video would rate very poorly. For those that are new to this, I'm sure they missed a lot by not having the correct close ups / over shoulder shots. Maybe refilm those and insert into the class course?

Student Work

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