stones set in silver

Many friends told me that they've bought some silver pendants and rings with
stones, but that stones fell out of the settings not long after the pieces
have been bought. Is that result of bad workmanship or is just silver too
light and/or fragile to hold stones securly in place for a long time? Thank
you!

in article , m4816k at
wrote on 19/8/03 2:51 pm:

Many friends told me that they've bought some silver pendants and rings with
stones, but that stones fell out of the settings not long after the pieces
have been bought. Is that result of bad workmanship or is just silver too
light and/or fragile to hold stones securly in place for a long time? Thank
you!


Hi Marijan,

Pure silver is a little soft but should hold stones for some years until the
silver wears away which it will do eventually.

Most jewellery is made of an alloy of silver and copper. In the UK this is
called "Sterling Silver" and it is 92.5% silver mixed with 7.5% copper.

In Europe the silver may be 80% silver 20% copper. Both sterling and
European silver/copper alloys are strong enough to hold stones for hundreds,
even thousands of years, as a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in
London or a similar institution will attest.

I still have some of the pieces I made 27 years ago. Some of the stones have
fallen out but that is because I was learning to set stones back then.

Now it is very rare that a stone of mine falls out.... But it does happen..
Usually when i try a new sort of setting or a repair that I know is probably
near impossible.

I always fix it right away because I know its probably my fault.

I suggest your friends take the items back to the seller and ask for a free
repair or refund.

Hillary

Hi,

Many friends told me that they've bought some silver pendants and rings with stones, but that stones fell out of the settings not long after the pieces have been bought. Is that result of bad workmanship or is just silver too light and/or fragile to hold stones securly in place for a long time?

You didn't say how the stones were set, bezel, prong, gypsy or wire wrap.

However, it really doesn't matter cause I'd attribute the failure to poor
workmanship. It doesn't sound like the setter knew what he was doing. I've seen
stones set in silver by all the methods listed that have been worn for years &
are
still in the original settings.

Dave

"m4816k" wrote in message
...
Many friends told me that they've bought some silver pendants and rings
with
stones, but that stones fell out of the settings not long after the pieces
have been bought. Is that result of bad workmanship or is just silver too
light and/or fragile to hold stones securly in place for a long time?
Thank
you!



The answer could be.... BOTH!

Silver is a soft metal and isn't ideal for things like prong settings where
the setting will take much wear and tear -- might be ok for a pendant, for
example, but not for a ring or bracelet. It also depends on the design of
the pendant and weight of the stone -- when I do use silver for prong
settings, I try whenever possible to use 6 prongs rather than 4, so that
there is that margin for safety if a prong gets bent during wear.

But for bezel-set stones, silver is just fine -- durable and lovely.

Having said that, there is also a lot of bad workmanship out there in
"cheap" silver jewelry -- stones glued into place rather than having a
properly fitted bezel, shoddy materials, etc.

KG

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 13:51:15 GMT, "m4816k"
wrote:

Many friends told me that they've bought some silver pendants and rings with
stones, but that stones fell out of the settings not long after the pieces
have been bought. Is that result of bad workmanship or is just silver too
light and/or fragile to hold stones securly in place for a long time? Thank
you!

That frequently means the stones were just glued in, not secured with
prongs or bezels.

--
Marilee J. Layman
Handmade Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com

"KG" wrote
Having said that, there is also a lot of bad workmanship out there in
"cheap" silver jewelry -- stones glued into place rather than having a
properly fitted bezel, shoddy materials, etc.


And then there's jewellery set with marcasites. Usually set in a pave style,
but due to the fact they're extremely brittle little things, any metal
they're set into is nudged up to themand therefore is just barely holding
them. As a result they tend to fall out. Especially the ones that are not
perfectly round when they rotate to a smaller diameter where the claws are.

Dale Porter