Soldering Works!

I had my Eurika! moment today but on a very small scale.

I got some bezel strip material today and made a little ring to set a
cabachon in and poked a little Handy Flux on it, torched it and it sucked up
the Xeasy solder like a sponge. The first one was pretty ugly but after a
few more they are pretty cool.

I soldered these with Tix to a piece of flat silver and the result is
awsome. These are not going to come off unless I fill the cup with 300F
coffee.

Question.... is it necessary to feather and overlap this sort of thing or
would a butt weld be satisfactory?

Now, I need some info on the bezel business. I am sort of groping as far as
the mechanics of this. I presume that the bezel has to crimp into the
curvature of the stone and I need to avoid straight sides for this type of
mount.

I see tools for crimping the bezel but not with enough detail to make one or
understand how it works. I could of course just buy one but that's no fun.

I mounted a 10 mm SRB in one of these and it is pretty nice but don't know
how to avoid losing the break facets in the process. Is this a ligitimate
method of mounting faceted stones?

One more question on cabs.... is there a standard form factor? i.e. width to
height ratio..

Thanks for the moral and technical support. I am now an expert hard
solderer. If anyone
needs any help I will be glad to answer all questions.

BTW, I squandered half a day on a trip to the big city and Barnes and Noble.
Not one bloddy useful book on this subject in the place.

js

--
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: http://schmidling.netfirms.com/weekly.htm
Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Gems, Sausage, http://schmidling.netfirms.com

On , in ?? Jack Schmidling wrote:

I had my Eurika! moment today but on a very small scale.

I got some bezel strip material today and made a little ring to set a
cabachon in and poked a little Handy Flux on it, torched it and it sucked up
the Xeasy solder like a sponge. The first one was pretty ugly but after a
few more they are pretty cool.

I soldered these with Tix to a piece of flat silver and the result is
awsome. These are not going to come off unless I fill the cup with 300F
coffee.

But unless you've got a serious excess of tix, there IS a danger of it
seperating, perhaps only in places, if you actually set it the correct way, which
will put an upward tension on the bezel edge. Now that you've realized the hard
soldering does indeed work, why didn't you continue on, and hard solder the
sucker to the flat piece too? if your bezel seam is very well fitted (a butt
joint, not ovetrlapping, with hard solder), and you use only the minimum required
solder to fill the seam, and then flatten the bottom edge of the bezel so it sits
tight down to the backing sheet, and again use only the minimum amount needed
(place solder snippets inside the bezel, resting on the backing sheet, but
leaning also against the bezel), you'd then realize a substantial increase in
strength and appearance. And then, do the same with medium or hard grades of
solder. Then, and ONLY then, can you come here and say you're beginning to learn
how to solder... (grin)

but it's a great start. congratulations.


Question.... is it necessary to feather and overlap this sort of thing or
would a butt weld be satisfactory?

the butt joint is the preferred on for the bezel, so you don't get a lump, and
the visible area of the solder seam is minimized to a thin line. feathered and
overlapped, after you clean it up there is a wider visible line. But it IS
stronger. Your choice.


Now, I need some info on the bezel business. I am sort of groping as far as
the mechanics of this. I presume that the bezel has to crimp into the
curvature of the stone and I need to avoid straight sides for this type of
mount.

Wtih straight sided stones, it become pretty much just a friction fit, and
usually, some sort of adhesive is then required. With a cab's curvature, you
form the bezel edge over that curve. Crimps is a misleading term though, since
there are not kinks or crimps involved. The entire upper edge of the bezel is
compressed in and down, to form a silver surface on the outside of the bezel very
much like that corrosponding surface on the cab. it's done simply by pushing the
silver towards the cab at first a little at a time, working around the stone.
initially, you can use almost any sort of a metal pushing tool. a plain brass or
steel rod in a handle works fine. when it gets close, you then burnish, which is
rubbing the silver both towards the cab, and in the vertical direction, down
towards the base sheet. The upper bezel edge compresses in, and down, eventually
ending up tight to the surface of the stone. Takes some practice to get right.
The burnisher is just a polished steel tool, usually with a point. commercial
ones are oval in cross section, and often the end of the tool is curved as well.
I often use a small bench made one made of steel (or for platinum, carbide)
round stock polished to a small bullet shaped point.


I see tools for crimping the bezel but not with enough detail to make one or
understand how it works. I could of course just buy one but that's no fun.

Not sure what you're referring to, here. I've seen tools that cut a sawtooth
edge on a bezle wire, for making the type of serated bezels popular with indian
silversmiths when setting turqoise. But I've not seen such things used by anyone
else, though they might be. The resulting bezel looks different from the usual
smooth edged version...


I mounted a 10 mm SRB in one of these and it is pretty nice but don't know
how to avoid losing the break facets in the process. Is this a ligitimate
method of mounting faceted stones?


You will loose just a little bit of the facet surface just next to the girdle, in
order that the bezel actually grips something. But it need not extend more than
about 1/4 to 1/2 millimeter beyond the girdle edge on most stones. It might be
extended more if the bezel needs to look thicker, but then as you note, one is
hiding some of the stone. The degree of this "overlap" is controlled by both the
amount of bezel height left standing above the girdle of the stone before
burnishing it over, and by subsequent trimming, usually with engraving tools,
after it's set.

One more question on cabs.... is there a standard form factor? i.e. width to
height ratio..


No.

Thanks for the moral and technical support. I am now an expert hard
solderer. If anyone
needs any help I will be glad to answer all questions.

Humble, aren't you. But as I noted, youv'e got a good enough start to be farther
along than you were a couple days ago. keep it up.


BTW, I squandered half a day on a trip to the big city and Barnes and Noble.
Not one bloddy useful book on this subject in the place.


Ah well. now, did we mention (several times) that you can order books from many
places online? More than a few will take returns if you dont' like them. And if
I recall, we suggested several useful titles for you as well. All but the
Brepohl book, even with shipping, would have cost you less than the gas to drive
a half day...

next time, try Borders, though. they seem to have more in the way of such art
and craft books.

Peter

"Jack Schmidling" wrote in message
...

Now, I need some info on the bezel business. I am sort of groping as far
as
the mechanics of this. I presume that the bezel has to crimp into the
curvature of the stone and I need to avoid straight sides for this type of
mount.

Usually the mount for a conventional round stone is a conic section made by
forming it with a tool set in a die with the silver tube between them, you
then belt it with a hammer and anneal.

Solder the bezel to whatever you're fitting it to, thin thesetting with a
tool called a scorper until the stone fits neatly and snugly inside, thin
the top edge, it should overtop the girdle of the stone by a little and the
table should stand proud, from the inside, and push the edge over with a
'pusher', then clean it up.

Scorper's need to be set in a handle and then ground to fit your hand. As
I've said before, this is a non trivial process.

--
William Black
------------------
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government

Jack Schmidling wrote:


Thanks for the moral and technical support. I am now an expert hard
solderer.

[[rbm edit]] TIX is not a hard solder, as you have
been told several times, it is a lead based soft solder!

http://shorinternational.com/Solders.htm


BTW, I squandered half a day on a trip to the big city and Barnes and Noble.
Not one bloddy useful book on this subject in the place.

[[rbm edit]]

Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

[["rbm edit" denotes off topic material removed by moderator. Abrasha, you know
the rules regarding personal attacks. Please construct your comments so they at
least appear to be intended as useful suggestions, or are sufficiently neutral
statements, that they don't seem intended primarily as insults. pwr]]

"Peter W.. Rowe,"

Now that you've realized the hard
soldering does indeed work, why didn't you continue on, and hard solder
the
sucker to the flat piece too?

I was simply doing the homework you assigned to me last message and am a kid
with a new toy getting this far.

if your bezel seam is very well fitted (a butt
joint, not ovetrlapping, with hard solder), and you use only the minimum
required
solder to fill the seam.....

If it's a perfect fit, there would be no room for any solder other than
outside or inside.

Then, and ONLY then, can you come here and say you're beginning to learn
how to solder... (grin)

That depends on the definition of is,,, er ah I mean beginning.

but it's a great start. congratulations.

Thank you for the help.

Not sure what you're referring to, here. I've seen tools that cut a
sawtooth
edge on a bezle wire.....

I guess what I saw were burnishing tools. I came up with a brass rod with a
3/16" radius on the end.

A new problem that came up is that the join is much harder than the rest of
the edge and seems impossible to force it to conform with a simply hand
tool.

Humble, aren't you.....

Not one of my long suits and furthermore, I refuse to use smileys when I am
joking just to add to the confusion.

Ah well. now, did we mention (several times) that you can order books
from many
places online?

Roger. Just ordered "Technique of Diamond and stone setting". My favorite
source is ABE use books.

Is anyone familiar with this title? I have no info other than the title to
go by.



And if
I recall, we suggested several useful titles for you as well.....

The problem there is the gross misunderstanding of what I am trying to do.

Suggesting a book called Goldsmithing and thinking I wanted to make a
chalice gave me little confidence in finding what I want without thumbing
through the books.

A quick search of ABE using "stone setting" came up with something more in
line with my current interest.

I am totally content with what I learned here about hard soldering the rings
and soft soldering them to the article. I just ordered some very small
drill bits and a small chuck so I can persue the wire mounting of faceted
stones.

My casting has progressed to polymer clay fiddling with broach designs, sand
casting them in tin to see how they work and to refine them as the real
pattern prior to silver casting.

BTW, I ran across something called Delft clay that sounds like it might be
an improvement over Petrobond. Anyone know anything about it?

Where I am really hurting is in the broach design. I am an engineer not an
artist and what I come up with is not very pretty.

Any volunteers? 12mm CZ, surrounded by 4, 8mm cabs, probably ruby.

js


--
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: http://schmidling.netfirms.com/weekly.htm
Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Gems, Sausage, http://schmidling.netfirms.com

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 17:50:41 -0700, in Dô Jack Schmidling wrote:




I was simply doing the homework you assigned to me last message and am a kid
with a new toy getting this far.

I understand. but now, you've got your next assignment. And while we're at it,
please order some hard silver solder, and some medium, too. the names sound more
difficult to use, but in truth, beyond needing to get hotter, they work better,
look better, and end up being actually easier to use, than the lower flowing easy
or extra easy solders, unless your torch is simply too small to get the work hot
enough. And chances are, if it's hot enough for extra easy, just a little more
time will allow you to solder with, at the least, medium solder.

if your bezel seam is very well fitted (a butt
joint, not ovetrlapping, with hard solder), and you use only the minimum
required
solder to fill the seam.....

If it's a perfect fit, there would be no room for any solder other than
outside or inside.

You pysically cannot get it to be too tight a fit unless you can arrange a rather
high pressure interference fit joint, and even then, capilary action will still
draw solder into a seam in most cases. the hard solders don't just wet the
surface, they slightly dissolve it and dissipate into it. Hard to keep them out
of a well fitted seam. Well fitted in this instance means holding it up to the
light ans seeing no light pass through the joint. It can seem really too tight.
Dont' worry. it won't be. The higher melting solders are better at filling
really tight seams than the lower ones, which is one reason why medium or hard
solder works better than easy or extra easy. You can fit the joints very
closely, and then use less solder. Wtih fitting a joint, while solder can
usually bridge small gaps well enough, the narrower the gaps, the neater your
joint, and the stronger your joint will be. If you can see easily visible gaps,
it's not fitted well. Also, the thinner the stock being soldered, the tighter
the joints should be fitted. Bezel wire for example, needs a better fitted joint
at it's connection closing the loop for the bezel, than in a joint in thicker
stock, though both should be as well fitted as reasonably managed.


A new problem that came up is that the join is much harder than the rest of
the edge and seems impossible to force it to conform with a simply hand
tool.


this is another reason to use harder solders. With less copper and zinc added,
the harder alloys are closer in working properties to the silver itself. also,
likely your joint in the bezel is a bit thicker than the bezel itself. Thin it
down with a file to match the rest of the bezel. if it's still harder, then this
will indicate that there is too much solder in the joint, since it's the solder
itself that is making that joint harder.


Roger. Just ordered "Technique of Diamond and stone setting". My favorite
source is ABE use books.


There are several authors on the subject. Zeiss is one, a translation of a
german book. Good info, though not super easy to understand some of it.

Wooding has written several books on diamond setting. All are good enough,
though some of what he describes is a littie hard to fully understand from the
book, but it's overall pretty good.

I don't actually know of any book just on stone setting that's perfect. Every
one such i've seen has info that, read by someone who already knows it, seems
just fine. But often, visually picturing just what's being done is hard to do
from the typical line drawings and usually only marginal photos, if any, in such
books. They're better than nothing, and some folks have learned a lot from them.
But I've also seen students get a bit confused with them. Many or most of the
more general books covering jewelry making as a whole, also cover at least basic
stone setting, and some of them have better illustrations of the process, if less
detailed info on the more advanced areas of the subject.


The problem there is the gross misunderstanding of what I am trying to do.

Suggesting a book called Goldsmithing and thinking I wanted to make a
chalice gave me little confidence in finding what I want without thumbing
through the books.


it's less a misunderstanding than you think. While we may have missed details of
just what you were making, the overall techniques are the same. The word
goldsmithing is generically used for almost all of the field of jewelry making,
whether one is working in silver, gold, or platinum. A text on goldsmithing
will tell you most of what you could wish. A possible exception would be if you
wish to become skilled at classic silversmithing, that bit with all the hammers
and stakes, raising larger hollow vessels from sheets of silver, bronze, or what
ever. That's a bit more specialized, and there's a better book on that class of
what's called silversmithing. But for jewelry work, whether you call it
metalsmithing or goldsmithing or jewelry making, we're talking about the same
thing.

Yet again, I'd recommend Tim McCreights "complete metalsmith", especially the
newest editions, as a general jewelry making text (widely used in college art
school jewelry programs). And, as mentioned, the Brepohl book. Trust me. What
you want, including stone setting, is in the latter tome...

Some others worth picking up if you find them.:

also for jewelry making, I quite like are Murrey Bovin's "jewelry making", and
older book, well done but not quite as well illustrated. his other one on
silversmithing is OK, but not as Good as Sietz and Feingold (spelling?) And if
you wish to understand lost wax casting as used in jewelry work, his "centrifugal
or lost wax jewelry casting" book is pretty much the best book on casting out
there.

Now out of print, I think, but sometimes still found in used book stores, is
Phillip Morton's "contemporary jewelry". Written over 30 years ago, I think,
it's still one of the best out there if you can find a copy.

You mention that you don't consider yourself an artist, and presumabely, thus
have trouble figuring out what to make that will look good. one solution for
that is a book with actual detailed projects, so all decisions are made for you.
Such a book exists, in graduated exercises/projects, with stunningly good
detailed photos, and detailed instructions that go much beyond most other books
in precise instructional detail. It's Alan Revere's "Professional Goldsmithing",
which is a compilation of project articles he wrote over a multi year period for
a couple of the trade magazines. While the total scope of the book may not cover
every possible subject, if you actually make every project in the book with
reasonable success, you will indeed have mastered the majority of the skills you
need to make most anything you wish. Alan founded the Revere Acadamy of jewelry
arts, one of the finest private jewelry making schools in the country, and he's
not only a fine jeweler and very fine teacher, but as the book (and several
others he's done) attest, he's an author very worthy of note as well. This one
will set you back about 70 bucks, like the Brepohl, but with the quality of info
and illustrations, it's well worth the money.


BTW, I ran across something called Delft clay that sounds like it might be
an improvement over Petrobond. Anyone know anything about it?

I dont' know if Delft is an improvement over petrobond or not. I've not actually
used petrobond, but DO use, on occasion, Delft. I've been told the two are
pretty much the same, and suspect that Delft is just repackaged (and quite
overpriced) petrobond, marketed as a kit with a cute little casting flask and
instructional video, aimed at jewelers who've not otherwise tried sand casting,
and don't know it's possible to work with sand finer than beach sand...

Peter

Peter, this trolling has been fun, but is it not enough ? Marion
"Peter W.. R
owe," wrote in

me

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 18:33:35 -0700, in àô Marion Margoshes
wrote:

Peter, this trolling has been fun, but is it not enough ? Marion
"Peter W.. R
owe," wrote in

me


Marion,

The thread has been on topic, at least as far as the jewelry making topic goes.
So that's not trolling.

Some of the attitudes displayed by various posters, on both sides of the
conversation, have been unfortunate, and as you might note in one reply of
abrashas, I've not had to start intruding a bit. I hope that further such edits
or posting rejections won't be needed.

If Jack (or any others) ask for advice on jewelry making, that's at the root of
what this group was chartered to be about. Now, if he, or other beginners or
newbies, choose to "ask the experts", and then doesn't choose to blindly follow
every scrap of sacred adived doled out, that's his choice. and it still is not
off topic or trolling.

Now if he, or anyone else, starts throwing angry responses around, they better be
statements directly discussing the merits of some aspect of jewelry making. If
they delve into aspects of various people's stubbornness or attituted or
percieved intellegence levels, or the like, they better do it nicely. Tensions
have indeed been getting to the "entertaining" level, and I can't let it get too
much higher. At this point, I've only needed to reject one post from one poster,
and edit one of Abrashas (normally I either approve in whole, or reject in whole.
This single instance of editing was chosen to show the group that I'm loosing
patience with the bickering. Mostly because it puts lil 'ol ME, in the
uncomfortable middle of the thing...

As to enough, well, see above. So long as the thread returns to being on topic
and civil, it can continue forever, if desired. Anyone who's tired of it can
stop responding to it. Simple enough.

Peter Rowe
moderator, rec.crafts.jewelry

"William Black"

Usually the mount for a conventional round stone is a conic section made
by
forming it with a tool set in a die with the silver tube between them,
you
then belt it with a hammer and anneal....

Roger on that but what I am trying to do in minimize the height profile so
they don't look like pretty warts. I have drilled holes and used cut down
commercial heads and used a counter sink to form a conic hole but find that
just selecting the right size hole puts the stone at the proper level.

I was under the impression that the stone could not touch anything much
without destroying the optics but I guess as long and it's not filled with
glue or some such thing it does not matter.

Solder the bezel to whatever you're fitting it to, thin thesetting with a
tool called a scorper until the stone fits neatly and snugly inside, thin
the top edge, it should overtop the girdle of the stone by a little and
the
table should stand proud, from the inside, and push the edge over with a
'pusher',...

You lost me. What is the scorper scorping?

As I've said before, this is a non trivial process....

I am a non-trivial person and respond well to detailed instructions.
Hopefully, the book on the way will help but I just do not see how setting a
stone in a hunk of metal in anything close to rocket science. Not sausage
making either but certainly somewhere in between.

js


--
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: http://schmidling.netfirms.com/weekly.htm
Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Gems, Sausage, http://schmidling.netfirms.com

"Abrasive"

Thanks for the moral and technical support. I am now an expert hard
solderer.

[[rbm edit]] TIX is not a hard solder, as you have
been told several times, it is a lead based soft solder!


You really are a Troll. I can not believe that you could say that after
reading the entire message.

You simply ignore the fact that I hard soldered the ring and glomm on to how
I attached it as a totally separate exercise.

On top of all that, there is no lead in TIX or cadmium or silver or troll
food.

The real problem is that I am a sucker for troll bait.

js


--
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: http://schmidling.netfirms.com/weekly.htm
Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Gems, Sausage, http://schmidling.netfirms.com