I ordered a bunch of oval and round healing crystals from a supplier, with the idea of practicing bezel settings with different shapes and sizes of cabochons.  This is the story of what I did with the 10mm rainbow moonstone round cabochons I received.

In an attempt to learn and challnge myself with bezel setting, I ordered a bunch of different sizes and shapes of healing crystal cabochons from one of my suppliers.

Not to make things too dificult for me, I decided based on my 6mm - 8mm round and oval beads, to play its safe and not order anythinig smaller than 7mm, with that in mind, I saw some round rainbow moonstone cabochons, with a blue lustre, which I thought would make fabulous earrings, so ordered 2.

When they arrived they where smaller than expected, and I was a bit nervous and apprehensive w.r.t. how I was going to work with them.

Due to the size of these cabochon the natural thing to make would be healing crystal studs, and so I started the process by creating the bezel walls. I could see instantly that both my 5mm and 3mm bezel wires would be too big for these 7mm x 5mm oval cabochons and the 10mm rainbow moonstone, so I thought it would be a good idea to cut the 5mm bezel wire in half, to create a 2.5 mm, but when it came to soldering the ends, I could not get a satisfactory bezel, so I revrted back to the 3mm and resigned myself that I would have to sand/file the walls down to te required height:
 

I wanted to create a pair of contemporary rainbow moonstone studs, so I thought about the design.

As I was working with rainbow moonstone crystals, I was thinking moonstone, moon, what goes with the moon?

Stars!!!!

So initially I drew and sawed out a 6 pointed star, and as I started filing I realised how unlike stars these shapes had become, I thought there must be an easier way to create stars?

On line I found a star disc cutter, and decided to invest some money in one, thus saving me time, money and frustration created the perfect star shapes for my jewellery design.

Shapes cut, bezels created, and the ear post filed and sanded all ready for soldering:
 
After soldering the bezeel wall to the star back plate, I realised that the stud was potentially too big to sit on the ear lobe comfortably, and I thought it would be better if it sat lower down on the ear as an earring rather than a stud.

So I set about creating an ear wire and soldered it to the back of the back plate, which turned out to be quite a tricky job, but with some perserverance I managed it and it was into the pickle to clean up all the excess flux:
 
A bit of buffing and polishing ensued, so that I would be ready to set the rainbow moonstones into the earrings, but wait, looking at the shiny silver and the white healing crystals, I realised that the stone would be lost, and you would not see the blue lustre.

I really want the gemstones I use to pop, so I thought that if I darkened the metal I could achieve that.

Thinking of the night sky, I did not want a jet black background to the earrings, so I used a cold solution of liver of silver, which instantly took me back to my CSE and O level Chemistry days, and played around with the depth of oxidation I wanted:
 
I spent the next 20 minutes checking the amount of oxidation the liver of sulphur was applyinig to the bezel setting until I was happy with the results.

A dip and wash into the bicarbonate of soda to neutralise and wash of the excess liver of sulphur, and then it was a polish to remove any excess and create an uneven oxidised effect, before polishing the ear wires back to the orginal silver colour:


 
A quick check to ensure I was happy with the amount of oxidation w.r.t the contrast to the light rainbow moonstone cabochon, I use some polishing pads to remove some oxidation, and then work out the best angle to set the rainbow cabochons within the setting to show of that blue lustre of the gemstones, before I start setting them:
 
Here's the final handmade oxidised sterling silver bezel set Rainbow Moonstone earrings in all their glory!

 
Even though the final design is a long way from what I first envisage when I started designing these earring, I have to say that these handmade beauties are look gorgeous, elegant and stylish, but clearly I'm biased, so what do you think?

I would really love to hear your thoughts, so post something in the comments below:

Until next time

Joolz xxx

2 Comments

October 03, 2020

Name*

Email*

Message*

YXUBTM

Submit