Todays Quartz Gemstone Silver Soldered Bezel Setting Attempt Using Flattened Wire Backing
Needed something to blog about so thought would add an entry about today’s soldering project.
I wanted to try another like 1Rockhounds Biggs Jasper piece with the bezel tape on the outside of the backing. Except I tried another attempt at using flattened wire for the backing again instead of cut out sheet backing.
The order of the images are out of order, but the step are correct.. Hope not too confusing..
Step One Image B shows how I fit the shaped wire to the inside of the stones perimeter. Works out once the wire is flattened out as it spreads.
Any smaller a gauge and I realized that needed a little more flattened surface area to be able and have enough extra room to play with when fitting it to the stones size.
Step Two Image A shows the 12 gauge round wire slightly flattened.
Step Three Image D shows the wire flattened and the perimeter filed to the match the stones outer edge.
Step Four Image F shows the flattened wire ends soldered together.
Step Five Image G and H shows it cleaned up a bit and additional filing to the inside of the flattened wire so it is somewhat uniform in shape on the inside.
Step Six Image I shows the bezel tape shaped to the outside of the flattened wire backing with the ends soldered together. It only took me three tries to get this part right ! 
Also important to file down any excess solder on the inside of the bezel tap joint. Otherwise will have problems when trying to solder it to the outside of the backing.
Initially I use a fairly stiff wire bristle wheel followed up with the 3M bristle discs. These discs work well..
Step 7 Image K.. I like to use silver solder paste for filling the space between the bezel tape and backing. Just seems to work nicely. I am sure any other solder would work just fine.
Step 8 Image L is from the back after soldering the tape to the backing. One problem I had was the flattened wire ends came apart and became un-aligned (lower right of image L). I tried to re-heat and press back in place but it would not budge. Stuck with it as it is.. It also resulted in not having a completely nice flat backing after sanding the whole thing on a flat surface.
Images M and N are after I used bezel pusher followed up with a burnishing tool to press the tape against the stone.
This is where things went further South on me too. As the bezel pusher created little indentations that I could not smooth out with the burnishing tool. Next time will pass on using the bezel pushing tool and just use the burnishing tool.
This was because I did not fit the outside of the backing “perfectly” to the outside of the stone. The result was extra gap that forced me to push the bezel tape further than would have been necessary if it was fit properly to begin with.
On this particular setting I am going to metal glue a bail to the top back once I can order some from Rio. Normally I would solder the bail on, but became impatient and went ahead and set the stone today. Not something will be getting in the habit of doing in the future… Just got in a hurry to see how it was going to look and knew I could not order any bails for a while.
Had been making some with fair success, but going to start spending a few extra dollars on some nicely finished ones from now on..
The end results show I need more practice !!
Thanks for reading and feel free to share any of your own soldering trials, tribulations or even successes with me !
