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Setting the Stone

Lesson 6 from: Intermediate Bezel Setting for Jewelry Making

Bonnie Heras

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Lesson Info

6. Setting the Stone

Lesson Info

Setting the Stone

Now the last thing you want to do is such you're still that's always the case, so I sanded everything then I do my finishing the polishing latina but this when you have a stone it is the last thing you d'oh so kind of just drawing this off let's hit it with a scotch bright patches to give it a little bit of a finish so you even do the polish so everything imagine it's at that nice pretty shiny state before you put your stone in there. Now you can do some of that touch up work when the stones already in place the thing is depending on type of stone it is if it gets dinged or hit it all when you're using the other tools it can damage it noticeably so it's a gamble so unless you know that that stone khun take it you know how it was you know? And some when you bought some manufacturers or or stone dealers can give you that information when you purchase the stone now it might be a little dirty on the inside there might be excess sauder and they're now if there is excess water in there unles...

s it's preventing you from being able to place your stone flat in there, don't worry about it no one's ever going to see it, you don't have to clean it up um although if it was on the exterior typically speaking, you're trying, you know, wanted to be you want to look messy so you would clean up all your soccer, so for the sake of moving on, we're going to start setting this now I'm gonna go back to using my ring clamp to support my peace while I do this is going to be hard to hold on when you're actually setting this it is pretty. Um, you have to use a lot of physical force to set this, and so you want to have a good grip on it, so I'm gonna use the flat side here of my nose is round here, flat little grip, my piece well placed that in there now, assuming that I have agreed on my finish, I don't want to worry about scratching my finish because I could you easily conflict during this process, so I'm actually gonna place tape along this edge to protect my finish. My polishing, my bettina, you don't have to do both if you if you just like one affect more than the other, by all means just do one just a matter of preference. So masking tape blue tape flew tapes good because it doesn't it's not hard to get off doesn't leave a tape like glue residue like other tapes to like duct tape would or, um packaging tape pack and you tape slips, so paper based tapes like masking taper painter's tape is good, so I'm kind of covering that hole surfaces you see there, really protecting it. Now we're gonna get to the fun stuff, bring out the unique tools here. So we have a few tools that you can use. This is a basil rocker, you can use a graver. This one just has a flat face on it, and then we're going to use a burner. Sure, we actually two different types of burner shares here. This one here, as well as this one here. So now, prior to having this all finished, you don't want to put your stone in there. It's so tempting to place your stone in the sunday, but always looking good. I'm really excited about man result if you don't have a hole there to pop it back out to do your finishing, you know, so you haven't polished yet. Um, it gets stuck. And then is there, and you're just going to have to deal with it to do it. Your other finishing another trick you can do that to avoid that is if there's a different kind of project you could draw, saw a hole in the back and so you could put a pin or needle to help kind of poke through and pop it back out. Some people use dental floss to kind of put down in there, and you could use that a string to pop it back out. But since we're just getting ready to set, where he's going to place it in there, so I just pop that in there, kind of see that it's sitting well, it's not sitting upright or anything. That means you made your setting properly. So now I'm ready to set, so I'm going to start with, and this is a once again a matter of preference. What type of tool use? Um, some people like to use just the graver. Some people like to use the furniture and so on. Um, now bench pins could be modified as you may have noticed, that. These on the bench pin can be exaggerated. You can add extra notches like this if you happen to have a wider one, then you could actually place this in the between the two grooves. So it's supported? Well, you are putting pressure on the stone and that's actually a quick and easy way of holding it stable because you're gonna have a lot of physical force, so I'm going to start by using this still are using the graver tool here basic, graver it's basically not really shape that much. Other graver tools have lots of there's also fancy tips out there, making sure the tapes out of the way at the moment here, I'm gonna start by doing that whole north south east west thing. You don't want to go around one side and push that hole wall over and then come to the other side because you might end up with extra material at the end and it won't be smooth, so and I'll look a little fussing, you're going to see it, so you're gonna start by pushing over like that. You see that switch to the other side, push it over like that, you know, my do my side angles like that now, depending on the height of your piece that actually technically always see in the four points right there. Could hold your stone in place but it's not really what we're going for I'm gonna switch to my bigger tool here my basil rocker and I'm gonna come from the side angles now and push that in using the rocking motion they're coming from that side rocking back and forth this will slip it's tricky be mindful of that you can use your other hand to support coming from the other angle rocking up and back and forth until now you've made it almost all the way around then you can start coming in on those dimple pieces there and really start to smooth it out now you can clamp this I could put this in my vice if I wanted tio there are other like fancy things called a graver ball it's really cool big fancy tool I don't even own one because they're like just this big hunk in thing that you can have different prongs and you can mount it's very heavy and makes it easy for you to set stones and there's other fancy things that you can use toe due this is your bare bones hand holes, so I'm just kind of coming around really making sure that that's being pushed and we're not seeing any kind of irregular shapes we're going for a smooth look now you may look at this and think ok it's set looks pretty smooth um looks pretty um and for the most part, it's there, but it can be even smoother any shiny er really set well and so that's where the burner shirt comes in so now we're going to take this tool we kind of rub it on the edge like that and really start to push starts to smooth out the metal stretch it technically speaking fitted out and because the tool itself has a bit of a polish on it, it actually polishes your medal at the same time and now we're starting it smooth now it could be even tighter than that I'm gonna angle my tools so the point is there and I'll start to kind of create a bubbling kind of see that if you get really close and kind of see that I've create a little bit of a bubble there in comparison to over here if you happen to not set it properly initially have well hiccups maybe the bevel was in sanded down flat or something sometimes during this process you can hide those mistakes, smooth it out, get those wrinkles out by pushing really tight here and smoothing it out a little bit more on the end now this could take some time if you really want to make it really beautiful and smooth so doing these rounds and rounds can happen multiple times to get a very clean result but just to start there that's pretty smooth um this is a new type of burnishing tool that could be a little easier to handle and once again it just a matter of what you find comfortable when you're doing this there are many, many tools out there just a matter of preference let me have a nice shine there on that stone more or less is pretty perfectly set, so just take the tape off and I didn't really slip, but slippage can't happen when you're putting that much pressure down that's once again why I put the tape there but just for peace out and it's set. So is there any questions about this? I know I didn't get quite to the petit nish the patina in the polish, but it is something that is referenced in earlier classes here kind of direct your any questions in regards to that to those but that is our basic piece assembled there saw her in the back with your basic kabash on setting yes, I didn't get what the gauge was of the band wire so the ring itself or the vessel the ring itself the ring itself I bought rectangular wire I believe it is twelve gauge actually here let's talk about the games played for a half second, so this is a gauge plate that shows you how you can actually measure medal when if you purchase even not sure what you got how it works is that you take it into the teeth right here and you just slip it in, and you're like, ok, that's, not fitting. Let's, go. So my guests, my eyes, have been trained for guessing this sort of thing, and it's, a twelve, someone, you're and you can see it's sitting right in there. So when you're looking at this, you don't want to go into the circles. When you're reading a gauge plate, you want to go into the outside teeth so I can look at this it's like, ok, that's. Twelve gauge, and thank you for asking that. Because then you can reference the chart again later, because it is important when you're sizing the thicker, it is the larger amount of material you need because it's taking up more surface area on the interior of the ring.

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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