Seated Bezel

Lesson: Seated Bezel

• Good for all stone types.
• You can vary the width/depth of the seat to best suit your stone.
• For faceted stones, use 22-18ga for the seat
• Make sure that the bezel is tall enough so that the bottom of the stone doesn’t peek out (and scratch you)
• For cabochons, you can either use sheet or square wire,

I recommend square wire.

• Consider piercing or texturing the bezel wall for effect.

Steps: 

• Form outer bezel wall.
• Solder, file.
• Fit bezel perfectly to stone. Mark top of bezel and any directionality
• Make seat for bezel from either sheet or wire.
• Solder, file, and fit inside bezel wall. The seat should be a tight fit!
• Solder seat inside bezel wall.
• File the bottom of your bezel and your seat straight before soldering- this helps you solder your seat in straight. The tighter the fit, the easier the soldering. Since this is an overlapping seam, you will use more solder than you think- cut extra!
• File, sand, and finish the bezel. Use an inverted cone bur or cylinder bur to clean up and excess solder inside of the bezel and seat.

Homework:

For next class- create a seated bezel for one of your faceted round or oval stones.