Hi I've been working on bezel setting this week, sterling silver and 9ct yellow gold. In my last post I was writing about a similar setting that we used in one of my classes for a Turquoise stone.
When you have to make a bezel setting for a cabochon stone it is so much easier to buy the bezel strip, or sometimes known as 'pancake reel', which is already a super thin gauge of 0.3mm thick and comes in a strip of either 3mm or 5mm high. And order as much or as little as you like.
The silver strip is so soft that you can manipulate it easily with your fingers at first, and then snip of the excess. It is so much more straightforward to get a good fit, without much fuss, rather than using a strip of silver sheet. I find that you can quickly get the metal into shape when wrapping it closely around the stone without having to adjust it several times, because of too many gaps.
The only pitfall can be when soldering the setting closed, and when you solder in it's place, is not getting it too hot. Because of the thickness it is easy to melt the wall of the setting. I still stick with a hard solder, as I find it behaves better compared to medium, or easy.
I am a bit of a fan of original products! I still like to use a borax cone and dish for my flux and strips of solder cut into tiny squares. You may prefer to use a paste of flux and solder in a syringe, if you find it flows better for you, and you have got to grips with how it works... I would say stick with what you know, and what works for you!
The setting that I've made here is for a small 5mm round Chrysoprase cabochon. The pretty pale green stone looks really nice next to the yellow gold finish
Polishing of the ring is completed first before setting the stone. Being so thin the bezel strip is easily pushed/rubbed over with a burnisher, which won't mark it as a stone setting tool would, or' bezel pusher'.
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