Jewelry Designer of fine custom
art jewelry

Making a Panel Ring: Part Two- Making the gem box

Degree of Difficulty: Intermediate

This is the blank canvas. Now I want to make the ring a little more interesting. I am going to file the corners off  first. Give it that faceted angular look.

I file this by eye. Not difficult. The trick is to file it further than looks balanced, because I am going to solder two plates on the corners, thus raising the height of the corners again. As you can see in the picture the ring does sort of have that 'military haircut' look. 

The picture's a bit kak, but the idea is clear. In the third arm, solder the plate first on the one side, then on the other side. I drilled a hole so as to allow for gas expansion. I am going to set a stone in the ring so the hole does not matter. Anyway, a hole allows for better solder joints.

Both plates filed on ready for filing down.

Sanded down to 220 grit. Now I am ready to make the bezel and solder it on.

The stone is a 3.13ct. Nigerian tourmaline that I cut in the Wilf  Ross' design called "Cut Corner Rectangle." The strip of metal is 18kt. white gold. Why do I use 18kt gold on a 14ct setting you ask? Firstly because is is MUCH softer than 14kt. white gold. Secondly, because the cost in negligible. And thirdly because 14kt white gold is the devils armpit material. Hard, nasty, semi yellow junk-- I never work in 14ct white gold.

Then I bend a U- neat and parallel. I put it upright and check that everything is 90 degrees.

So that it fits the stone like this. The girdle of the stone must be about halfway across the thickness of the metal. Everything MUST be straight and neat.

Then I solder the 'U' on with hard solder like this.

Then I do the other side.. (the stone has wax on it) Care must be taken that the stones girdle is equal on all sides.

I sand the box down . The fit must be good. The more accurately I work now, the easier the stone will be to set later.

Then I file the wall of the box at an angle to accept the stone. As you can see, I have not done the corners yet. First I concentrate on getting the sides nice and equal. If this bezel was already soldered onto a ring, then I would use a tapered burr in my hanging motor, and some flat gravers to achieve the same effect. But it is MUCH  easier to file the box before it is soldered on.

Here I have filed the inner corners away and the stone is settling in nicely. Incidentally, when I work for extended periods of time with an expensive stone on my bench, I spray it with white lacquer spray paint. This protects the stone from micro scratches. And if the white paint scratches off, I know I am handling the stone to roughly. I remove the lacquer with thinners.

Now the outer corners have been filed away and the box is ready to be polished and soldered onto the ring.

I pre-solder the bottom edges of the box and then file the bulges of the solder flat. That is why it looks as if the box is standing a bit proud on the top surface of the ring. It is, in fact. Now I take care to heat the ring ALL OVER equally, with lots of flux and a strong-ish reducing flame.  I also put the ring in my third arm so that I can bring my torch all around the piece.

Bang! Soldered perfectly. Now I set the stone, which is to be shown in a future tutorial. Suffice to say that I drill a appropriately sized hole in the top of the ring and once the stone is settled in nicely, push the edges over.

Like this. Sorry for the press stick at the bottom of the ring, but I don't Photoshop my pictures. I hope you enjoyed this two part Hidi. As usual, any comments can be sent to hans@meevis.com