Bezel setting has been a bit of a bug bear for me, when it comes to gemstone setting my jewellery, as I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to the final finish, so I decided to confront me demons and concentrate on creating my collection of handmade gemstone rings.

Now I am not saying I am an overachiever, but I have to say that I never seem to take the simple path in things.

My approach has always been throw yourself in head first, and work out the details as yougo along, I guess this is my learning process, which maybe expensive but I seem to excel in such situations, and it was with this in mind that I decided that I wanted to start adding some haling crystal bezel set rings to my range of handmade jewellery.

Logically one would think that when starting out a new learning endeavour that one would start with a simple shape like a circle, but not me, I decided on what healing crystal did I want to turn into a ring first.

In this case I choose 3 cabochons:

• A large oval Turquoise,
• A smaller oval Rhodochrosite, and
• A rhombus Amethyst

The rhombus Amethyst cabochon was a bit tricksy wrapping the fine silver around and soldering, but I am nothing if not tenacious and determined.then it was just a matter of soldering the backs on to the bezel strip to create the setting.

As I am not the most patient of people, as those that know me know, I have invested in a bigger blow torch that can reach higher temperatures quicker so making the soldering process quicker and less painful.

The next stage is to create the ring shanks, using 2mm sterling silver square wire, means a bit of annealing to soften the metal making it easier to form the ring, and then soldering on to the back plate.

Logically this should be simple process, find the middle of the back plate, mark it, flux, solder and apply heat, and the two pieces of metal a joined!

The Amethyst ring was relatively straight forward, as I aligned the ring shank with the corners of the diamond corners.

Now when it comes to the oval cabochons that's a different proposition altogether, so starting with the larger turquoise cabochon, I follow the same principle, but on soldering, the ring does not quite sit on my finger properly.

What to do????

I decide to heat up the ring to separate the two piece, so I can start again, and try with the the smaller rhodochrosite oavl ring, but the same thing happens.

I repeat this process 6 times in all, until I am happy with the way the rings sits on my finger, all the while wishing I had started with a round cabochon:

 
All the rings are pickled, cleaned up, and filed, a quick check that the cabochons fit within the setting, before being added to the barreling machone to make them nice and shiny.

A final polish with my mops, and I am ready for the final part, the actual setting of the cabochons within the sterling silver setting.

Starting with the large oval turquoise cabochon, the stone pops in, and I start setting te gemstone.

Typically I start with the ends, as this is where things can get a little tricksy, if the metal decides to bunch up there.

The top is getting set nice andI start working on the bottom section, it is then I realise that this caboochon was not cut flat, so the stone is rocking, and pushing it out of the setting.

Now at this point I should have stoppped, removed the cabochon, added some metal to the bottom of the bezel setting, before adding back in the cabochon and carry on setting.

Hind sight is a great thing!.

Instead I decided to carry on, and set the cabochon with the unevenness by over compensating for it.

After 5 minutes of using brute force to set the turquoise cabochon, the law of physics kicked in and I landed up spliting the setting!!!

So now I had a cabochon 80% set into the ring with a split, theres nothing for it the setting is going to have to go!!!

I had to saw away the bezel wall from the back plate to release the stone, and decide to heat up the rest of the ring, to separate the ring shank from the ring back plate.

It's now back to the drawing board, and a couple of messages to a couple of fellow jewellers about my little uneven cabochon problem.

Luckily for me, I did not have the same problem settinig the other 2 rings, but that both had different challenges.

But 1 day later I have created 3 gorgeous sterling silver bezel set cabochons rings:
   
I love how these gemsteone rings came out, I think they are both classic and contemporary, sterling silver is such a gorgeous neutral metal that not only does not detract the natural beauty of the crystal cabochon, but actually amplifies the crystals energies and healing properties 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

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July 28, 2021

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