(Advanced) Techniques in setting your "4-Claw/Prong" ring.

 In the many tutorial essays on "4-claw, Engagement ring settings. There have been numerous articles, posted in many magazines.

 With this blog-essay, there are more photographs taken from my own bench and not by way of drawings, or diagrams from other sources.

  I need to make sure you, the viewer, understand this very important setting process.

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 Here are my favourite "High Speed Steel", 90degree angle burs. With out any of them much of the Engagement rings just couldn't get started, let alone be accurately finished.

 Here is a HSS bur that is 80% the size of the intended stone that has to be eventually mounted. You can see the beginning of the bearings taking place. 

   The angles of this bur are to the exact proportions of any Diamond, or gemstone.

 I just can't imagine if I lost any of them. To prepare a new full set of these HSS burs, are well into hundreds or thousands of dollars.

This one 8mm HSS bur, is equivalent to $45+.00 (plus 13% taxes)

  I want you the reader to see that there are two methods in finishing the claw-tops. One of them is a straight-forward "Cup, or Ball" shaped bur.

 The other is a Triangular #4 grit 'file to finish' the top. I prefer the exacting process of "filing by hand."

 Here is the HSS bur starting to create a bearing in the claw. But first  used a bud-shaped bur to carve out a line for the widest section of the HSS bur.

 If I didn't do this preliminary carving, the bur would go wild and rotate around the claw, this would cause me tons of problems in the filing to repairing,

This is result of having the HSS bur making a clean and distinctive bearing-cut for the Diamond.

 These are the selection of my gem-setting setting tools. I have all of them in my bench, within fingers and hand control, not something that I have to look and search for at a moments notice. They are so close to each other.

You have a good choice of how the claws should be finished. 

1) Either a #77B-cup bur to create a ball effect. 2) To file the top flat, but the rear of the claw should be having 3 sides filed and at the rear (outside) smoothed into a curve. YOUR CHOICE, either one is nice and with total security.

 The needs to have the bearings cut and shaped is paramount in setting any large size Diamond.

 

 BTW, always remember to file-trim the claws and polish prior to any setting of any large (or small) stone. Once the stone is in the ring..."too darned late" for any major cleaning. 

  You can see the level of the bearing-cut, it should not be as high as shown, why not? The answer is very simple BUT MUST BE EXPLAINED. 

 

 If your bearing is made higher as seen, your top of the claw will not have enough metal to file & trim accurately and not have enough metal to be needed for wearing the ring for decades to come.

  

 Place your bud bur at least 1/3 of the distance DOWN FROM THE TOP.

 Don't forget to polish the inside of the claw-cage and around the claws before setting.

 The claw tip should well above the "Table" of the Diamond, but not at the same level. The difference of height is where you must do all of the cleaning and alterations. Without this extra metal, you are prone to many setting problems.

 This is the optimum level of metal for correct filing. This will give you a good amount of metal to work on.    

 To have a uniformed flat surface on all of the 4 claws, I'd use a "Snap-On" Emery disk of "Medium" grit. This is to reduce the height on all 4 claws the same time.

  Here is a good example of showing the 1/3rd height from the top of the claws to your working area. 

 This height is not adequate as there is not enough metal to File, Emery paper and Polish on your cloth polishing wheels.

Please FILE,  EMERY clean and POLISH all for the sides of the claws prior to start the setting process. Once the stone is in the ring, it's to then too late for these very important steps.

 What happens if the bearings are not matching the Facets up from the Girdle?

  I use a very good opportunity in using a #4/0 Saw-blade to have the saw blade rest against the "Star-Facets". Let the saw blade cut an extra groove INTO THE CLAW. 

 Then the claws will be against the stone. How far into the claw will you go? Just enough for the blade to be at the girdle of the stone, not one millimeter further into the claw. This way the claw will be nestled securely and holding the stone in place.

 After your HSS bur has made its cutting, there will be a sliver of metal on each of the 4 claws. DON'T USE A FILE TO REMOVE THEM. This will leave a textured surface along the one side of each claw. 

 The only way to remove this sliver of metal is to use your FLAT graver and cut from the tip of the claw down towards the bottom of the claw. End of this unusual problem. As the bur is rotating in one direction, then this extra metal will be only on one side of each claw, not all four.

 

 In this photo is the application of the FLAT graver to the claw. You cans see where the cutting starts.

  Here are the 4 graver-cutting results, nice and clean and no additional cuttings are required.

  On a Difficulty scale of 10, I'd place this exercise at a definite 9 out of 10.

  This has been extra notes in the series of setting a "4-Claw Engagement ring."