still kicking

[Dani Girl]

 

[Dani Girl]

I did this extremely hard stainless ring a couple of days ago. I set the sapphire in. I broke 4 116 gravers trying to push beads up and over and severely mushed a beading tool, which I can repair. any pro tips for setting into hard metals? should one make ones own beading tools out of carbide with diamond ball burs? should one restrict oneself to certain methods of setting? carbide burs and drills seem a must. I was going to try setting this piece but I've surrendered to just engraving it as i started to drill it with a carbide busch pave bur and found it maybe even harder than that ring was. (gold plated stainless tags)

 

[Sinterklaas]

I've been trying both an onglette and a 90 degree v for the cutting around the stones. I see the onglette mostly in youtube stone setter videos, actually I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything else. For some reason I loathe cutting with the onglette but I'm giving it more of a go. I've also been trying the 90 degree v and I'd have to say I prefer the feel of using it and I have them well polished so the bright cuts actually look bright. Thankyou for the feedback Sinterklaas, I greatly appreciate it. Ok, so shared beads never actually get shared over three stones? It's hard to see in videos whether they are getting pushed straight down on to result in each bead covering three stones or if there is some pattern to the pushing the beads so that they are being pushed sideways to beads holding two stones at a time (pave shared prong setting). I'm not sure how to eliminate triangular posts to be beaded between stones in staggered setting like this (pic).

The 90 degree might be to wide and thus remove to much of the prongs. Use 60 degree gravers and tilt them a little away from the stone holes.

In some cases 1 prong is shared between 3 stones. Like in your design 1 center and 6 around. Then the prongs around the center are shared between 3 stone.

If you do shared between 2 stones you can first push the prong a little sideways. Pushing towards the 2 stones. You can use a splitter or a flatgraver. Then use a beading tool to shape the prong and push the last bit over the 2 stones.
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For the stainless rings I would not use such wide gravers. Then you have to push a lot of metal. Use 90 or 60 degree.

For hard metals you are correct use carbide drills and burrs.
But I think you can still use normal steel beading tools. If mine get mushed it is mostly because they hit a stone.

You can indeed make your own from carbide. But it will increase the risk of damaging stones. Diamond will probably be safe. Although I even manage to break them sometimes using normal tools. Other stones you have to be more careful.

You could also try to do a gypsy/rub-over setting in the harder metals. Then you burnish metal over the stones. And dont have to cut and push prongs.

Are you using handpush gravers? Or power assisted gravers?

I would suggest practicing on softer metals first. I find that phosphor bronze is a very nice metal to practice in. It is not to hard and it is also much more forgiving than silver or copper. With silver or copper prongs might snap off if you make a mistake. Where as the phosphor bronze is more like gold. I highly recommend it for practice.