Bezel Setting Prep

Lesson: Bezel Cleanup and Setting Prep

• The thinner the wall the quicker it is to set, but the harder it is to finish cleanly. Thicker walls take a bit more time to set, but there is more material to move around and file for finishing. Think about how the wall thickness adds to the design of your piece.
• Leave an opening in the bottom of the bezel. This way you can get in to clean the stone after it is set. Stones in rings and earrings especially pick up body oils and dirt very quickly. Thinking about this while creating a piece makes it easier for you to take care of it.
• Make sure that your bezel seats the stone properly! If the stone sits correctly setting is much easier- trust me. It is well worth the extra time to get it right.

Flat Bezel:

• Check fit of bezel to stone.
• Mark the direction that the stone fits best- use either sharpie or bit of tape or pastel to align. When setting multiple stones, you can use masking or blue painters (low tack) tape to keep stones in order and oriented.
• Mark any areas where the stone is hitting the side of the bezel and open those areas up with an inverted cone or cylinder bur.
• For bezel wire/thin wall bezels, you can use your burnisher to push the walls out slightly, but if more than minor tweaking is needed, you will need to remake the bezel- fit is very important!
• If there is any solder inside the bezel that needs to be removed, use an inverted cone or cylinder bur gently to grind that down.
• Check the depth of the bezel wall and mark any excess that needs to be removed. For stones that are symmetrical, you can mark the proper bezel height with dividers. For asymmetrical stones, mark with a sharpie.
• File to correct height.
• For thick wall bezels, use setting bur to cut inside chamfer.

• If needed, you can smooth the chamfer out with a rubber wheel.
• File an outside chamfer so that there is a very small flat area at the top of the bezel.

Seated Bezel:

Layout:

• Estimate the bearing (seat) depth.
• Go deeper if you are uncertain since you can always file excess off of the top.
• Look at the side view and file to level off the top. Check from all angles.
• Check the girdle thickness and also check for uniformity of thickness.
• Especially in oval cut stones, there is a lot of variation in the girdle thickness due to “makeup” facets to keep the shape even.

Cutting the seat:

• Check the bearing vertex (seat) to see if it needs to be evened out.
• If so, use an inverted cone bur to cut it down.
• If the setting doesn’t have a seat, mark one into the setting with dividers.
• Double check the depth against the stone and then cut the line with an inverted cone bur.
• Open up the setting to the correct size with a cylinder bur.
• Ride the bottom of the bur lightly on the seat to keep even
• When the stone begins to go in, mark any areas where it is touching the side with a sharpie and just open up those areas further.
• Look at the depth of the pavilion shelf.
• You can turn the stone upside down if it is a symmetrical cut to get a clearer view.
• Reduce the pavilion shelf with a bud bur- not the slimline reamer!
• Go almost all of the way to the edge of the shelf, so there isn’t a lot of material to remove when cutting the bearing seat.
• Cut the bearing seat with the setting bur.
• Take a small ball bur (slightly taller than the girdle height) and make a slight undercut in the side walls.
• This will keep pressure off of the top corners of the girdle and help to prevent breakage of the stone.
• Cut an inside chamfer with a setting bur.
• If needed, you can smooth the chamfer out with a rubber wheel.
• File an outside chamfer so that there is a very small flat area at the top of the bezel.

Homework: Have your 2 flat bezels and your seated bezel cleaned up and ready to set next week.