TaoGem Gemstones

I wanted to sorta be prepared for my first silver metal clay beginners class coming up the end of the month.

I decided to practice what I preach from a previous blog entry, and will design my first piece more around the design / shape of the stones. Then work second with the shape of the silver clay setting.

Of course I have a bit of an advantage as I am able to design my first piece around any shape and type of stone I desire. Again a big advantage to working with a lapidary if you are designing custom gemstone jewelry or other gemstone related artwork.

A book that was loaned to me is really helping a whole lot.

One thing that I had not thought about and wonder, is if the instructor will be bringing bezel tape for nice proper settings. I am thinking that as a beginning class it will be pretty basic, and likely will be glad I brought my own.

Being my first time, did not want to get too complicated and yet I want to take advantage of the hands on instructions as well as utilizing the bezel tape, as I foresee using the bezel tape in all my future metal clay work.

A book titled “Metal Clay” by Jackie Truty.

It shows how the tape will be set into the clay. Then if the stone is a little bit too short in height, material can be added under it to bring it up to working height in regards to rolling the tape properly over the beveled edge of the stone.

Here are the matching stones that I would like to use in my first setting.

Here is somewhat how the stones will be set in the metal clay setting. I am going to try a double setting my first try! These two stones are matched in the sense that the spider webbing effect of the Jasper was lined up and cut from the same piece so that when the stones are set, although separate, will match and hopefully look unique.

As my stones are now, they are just a bit too high in comparison to the height of the bezel tape. Especially by the time the tape is pushed down into the clay prior to drying in the kiln.

I will take just a hair off the bottom to make them set properly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 1:31 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.