Diamond Necklace
Chuck Koehler
Bezel setting is one of the most secure methods of securing a gemstone into a mounting, but one of the most difficult to do cleanly. Bezel setting, by its very nature, requires you to deform and wrinkle the metal around a stone causing uneven variations in the bezel. Once you achieve a level of skill to be able to do a competent job on a bezel setting, the trick becomes making it cleaner than the last one you set. I’m going to cover a few techniques that I’ve developed through the years that I hope you can use to increase your skill level.
Occasionally pieces come into my store that I made 10 or 20 years ago. It’s like going back in time (and skill) to see how much you’ve improved through the years. I recently saw a bezel set pendant that I made in 1993 that prompted me to write this article.
I remember that I struggled with the stone back then because it had a thick girdle and a fat pavilion. Looking at it 13 years later, I was actually surprised at how good it looked. All I remember was how much trouble it was, and I was never really happy with it....but it was part of a wedding the next day and I had to let it go. (Oh, by the way, the chain broke which is why it was back in my shop...the stone did not fall out!) It’s funny how when you’re working on a piece, all you notice is what’s wrong, not what’s right. If you put it down and look at it a week later, all you notice is what’s right and don’t even notice anything wrong. As I was looking at this pendant, I realized that I set bezels much better now and that I use a few different techniques that I didn‘t know in 1993.
The Three Biggest Problems:
Most problems with bezel settings fall into three categories. The most common is an uneven, out-of-round bezel. The second is the metal flashings that are against the stone that you can’t remove without scratching the stone. And lastly the dreaded “bezel tear” where the metal was too thin in one part of the bezel and tore away. Anyone that’s ever set a bezel has had a bezel tear...and you know it’s almost impossible to fix invisibly. Here’s how I’ve solved those three problems.
Getting Started:
The bezel I’m setting is part of a custom diamond necklace. The diamond is a 1.07 ct., VVS2, G-color, which I am going to bezel set into 14KYG. After I cast the piece and solder the hand made bezel in place, I used a standard stone setting bur to remove the metal inside the bezel and seat the stone. The photo shows the stone in place before setting. If you use your optivisor, you can see the metal wall before moving it to its new home over the stone. The table of the stone is slightly higher than the bezel wall.
Next, the photo will show how I file the top of the bezel flat to remove any flashings and to give me a good picture of the top of the bezel. It allows me to see any variations in the thickness of the bezel wall.
And lastly, just before I put the stone in the mounting for the actual setting, I run a 45 degree undercut bur along the seat just to give the metal a little extra room to move.
Probing the Bezel:
I’ve found through the years, that no two bezels are ever alike, and no two stones are alike, so no two bezel settings are identical. That fact makes me do what I call ‘probe the bezel’. One of the problems I mentioned earlier that is inherent in bezel settings is uneven bezels. This is usually caused by one part of the bezel wall being thinner and moving easier and faster than another part of the bezel wall. Almost every bezel setting job has this issue. When one area moves out of sequence with another area, the metal will get out of round and cause the bezel to be uneven. Look at the photo that shows the bezel with three arrows written with a sharpie.
Looking closely at the photo you can see that I’ve begun to move the metal over the stone because of the crinkling of the metal. All I’ve done at this point is very lightly, using a hand held prong pusher, moved the metal trying to find its weak points. On this particular setting job, there were three. I used a sharpie to mark these three areas so I know where they are. Now as I actually start the setting process and I’m going to be applying a significant amount of pressure to move the metal over the stone, I’m going to be extremely careful in those three areas because I know that the metal will move much faster and collapse onto the stone well before I‘m ready for that to happen.