"Bent Bur" to fill in your small holes in metal.

  In 1970 A.D. I was taught a very simple technique and that is to fill in a hole in the metal without soldering. This is so easy I'd like to show it to you all NOW.

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 Get an old worn bur that is ready to be recycled, but don't do that. Put that bur against your lighted torch and soften the steel to 100% RED HOT. 

 Let it cool down and get a pair of pliers or even a hammer and bend it to a shape as shown in the photos.

 Once the burned steel is now soft, you can now file the tip, so one part of the tip is at a 45-degree angle. That will be your new "metal moving hammer". The face of the bent bur will be polished to a high sheen. If you lose it, just make another one for a spare!

 What will this rotating tip do to the hole? The rotating bur will actually "move the top layer of metal" towards and over the hole. The hole is now covered, wasn't that easy?

 Here are the photos to guide you!

Imagine that this was once a nearly discarded bur. We gave it a "new lease on life".

 This photo just shows you the Bent-Bur/Nail, beside the regular Reciprocating Anvil.

Round & HSS bur "Contact & Depth" spots

 This essay will enable you to achieve a better understanding of what these burs can offer you while you are gemstone setting.

 I drew this (rough) diagram, as an example of where the 'contact spots' are located, once you make contact with them, your gemstone setting will be made easier.

 When you locate the teeth on the 156C (Carbide) or even the "High-Speed Steel" HSS bur always look for the teeth and these will guide you into where to start your drilling.

 These contact spots are your indeed, your true friends. I watch for them continually while doing my drilling into the metal.

 Although these two burs look the same, but this is not the case.

Remember that the "156C" teeth are made very close together, but they will not cut into the metal as much as the HSS will do.

 I ask you to choose which bur to use for different situations, as shown below.

 My diagrams should be very useful  to you and further writing, or texting is not required for this essay.

What is a "Micro-Motor" - why are they GREAT?

  On "Orchid-Ganoksin" dated Dec.29th & 30th/2022 a question about this unbelievable bench apparatus was discussed. I replied, as I always do in writing "what a great new essay topic".

 I've been using this type of bench tool since the early 1990s.

 This preferred bench-type of motor has been an integral addition to my setting bench for over 30+ years. 

 Why is this type of such a valuable addition for us all? These answers are solely my opinions and from my own experiences. 

With 65 years of Diamond Setting experience, I've seen many changes during the past decades.

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1) First of all, there is no need for a long "heavy weighted" cable.

2) No need to keep lifting your (cumbersome) #30 handpiece while you are trying to do your delicate jewellery fabrication.

3) Your hand or arm will get extremely tired in the process. 

4) There is no longer a key to unlock your many burs.

5) There is no longer a very heavy large motor resting on a pole on the corner of your bench. (Those days are gone like the Dinosaurs).

6) The eventual "full lack of mobility" prevents any chance to make creative work.

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                         Micro-Motor: positive responses!

The "speed control" is both on the bench-top and another "speed control" is located on the floor. The "On & Off, plus the Reverse direction" are located on the instrument.

 I've made "smileys" to remember what speed not to go to, or beyond. For Diamond Setting any higher speed is not required.

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1) The "#30, hand-piece" is too cumbersome to work with. It has no flexible features.

2) The flex-shaft handle (shown on top) is my second choice, but I still had that 'heavy cable' to contend with.

3) My FIRST CHOICE is the fantastic 'Micro-Motor'. It's so easy to hold, as the motor & air-cooling fan is in the handle.

 The parts of that inferior (unnamed) pedal are no longer made and the stocks are no longer available. I always have a secondary apparatus for backup, I don't like to be caught a second time.

I had to buy another brand of micro-motor just to replace this one, no other pedals in the market would work in conjunction with theirs.

      (I deleted the name & photo of this particular brand for legal reasons.)

  There are times when "experimenting" is another 'teacher'.

 If a tool is not adequate for me, I WILL RETURN IT, with my reasons. I did contact both my tool supplier and that company about why I wasn't pleased with their micro-motor. 

 We exchanged long discussions about these pedal problems. We were unanimous that I should look for another brand of micro-motor.

 

 In closing, if I caused any frustration because of this essay, I apologize. "Gerrylewy18@gmail.com".

 

 If you wish to know this company's name, I will give it to you in my return (private) email.

"Computer Aided" Diamond Setting; "Before, During & After" (with gem-setting situations).

    This CAD diamond setting is an absolutely clean & organized process of setting diamonds. These are refurbished ring tops, each ring weighed 55 grams. There was also an "After Market, Rolex-Bezel" involved this labour intensive project.

  These are the original patterns direct from the designer's computer desktop, the round disks are for a ROLEX Bezel. 

 Instead of setting the diamonds with Pave' graver setting, I chose to use CAD, mini-claws. We also decided to use this method, as it offered a much cleaner looking watch-bezel and ring-top.

   I'm not mentioning my prices for my Diamond Setting fees, or any CAD costs. This isn't what I'm writing this tutorial-essay about.

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 My client "in his infinite wisdom", decided to have me set these diamonds on the very thin metal. This was a poor "judgement call " from him, as I proved him wrong many times during this project. 

 I attempted to persevere the thin metal but in all honestly, my actions failed as the metal was only 1.15mm's in thickness.

Here are the 350 diamonds to pick & choose from, for this challenging project.

 My jeweller removed the "thin metal" from the top of the ring and soldered the CAD  plate in it's place. You can see just how nicely the few diamonds look, there were only 2 MINI-CLAWS PER STONE.

  Here is a tray containing 190, 0.88 m's stones. I was afraid in dropping them when I moved them from one bench to my next bench.

  Each ring had 245 stones, YES, 245 LITTLE DIAMONDS, each were smaller than 0.1 mm. 

 I wasn't happy with the beading on the first ring pattern. I asked (told) my client some radical changes that had to be made, a.s.a.p. if I had to continue with this project. It was my ultimatum, now, or forget it!

 You can see how thin the metal was by looking into the holes. There was no uniformity anywhere.

To prove my point, here is my digital caliper to prove just how small the diamonds were. Some were, would you believe 0.72mm's? And I wasn't using any microscope in the diamond setting.

 This process was getting to be rather annoying as I couldn't proceed any further. We had a long talk about what I was going to do to remedy this problem.

 If I had to set larger stones, the depth were going to be problems in the final setting process. This metal was too thin for any bead-setting.

 

 In this package of stones, were 360 diamonds. Do you want to count them all? The total diamond weight was 4.07 carats.

  On the watch bezel, I had no problem thankfully but I Bright-Cut both lines had to be shiny. Not to mention that they had to be well defined on both sides of the bezel frame.

 My watch-maker had to get the bezel-frame well fitted. This was before any diamonds went into the spaces for setting.

 I had my of-site jeweller removed the thin metal plate and solder a new layer of gold that came with 488 mini-claws for the 244 diamonds. There were 2 claws for each stone, hence the doubling of the claw numbers everywhere.

The center stone was the largest to work with, it was 0.08 points in size.

The watch bezel finally got finished, then my watch-repairman had to fit the bezel to the watch frame.

On the outside edge were 42 diamonds, YES, I had to Bright-Cut both lines before the stones were set.

 Here is another view of the "finished, watch frame".  I used warm (not hot) Methylated Alcohol  to remove the shellac. 

I painted lines on the claw-tips. I used these to give me a spot to work on, so many little mini-claws I had to set the stones into little areas. Or I would have lost my way in the 190 diamonds. 

My bench-pin had a small area, this prevented me no chance in loosing any of these stones. I had to keep these stones into little groups, as many areas were needing different sizes all the time.

 I evenly spaced the corners with larger stones. That is why I had larger corner-spot  occupy a larger diamond.

The outside 42 diamonds, were the smallest of the 244 stones that I prepared.

Each of the watch-bezel had 4 mini-claws, but when I was drilling the holes, the claws were removing much of the available metal to set each stone. Being careful was so paramount in this project.

I had to select the smallest diamonds around the center larger stone.

Pre-polishing the watch-frame was not done quickly. It had to be done with much care and knowing where to polish and have this frame cleaned for setting.

My preferred ring clamp is named "Inside, Ring-Clamp", the plastic inserts come in different sizes

  The hexagonal screw expands by way of rotating it with a wrench-key. Each time it's turned, the screw tightens the ring tighter. I didn't want any sort of movement during the setting process.

You can see the "wrench-key" in the case.

 I only allowed a few diamonds onto my bench-peg while being set. I'd rather drop a few stones, than many. 

 You can see some of my setting tools; the wax-dob, hand-piece, graver for moving each bead-claw. Of course a metal tray to catch any dropped stones...(there were many of them.

 I only had 1 or 2 round burs being used at one time. I wanted an organized and  uncluttered bench-pin and setting area.

   The range of small round burs were in one packet from 0.03 => 0.10 mm's.

 The largest diamond was a 8.0 point diamond and now compare that with the 0.88mm's for the smallest. Now you can see why I had to change the top of both rings in using "CAD" to help me in this gem setting project. 

 I used the Onglette graver to move each claw over the stones. I "rounded" the leading point of the graver to lightly dig into the metal to gain better momentum in the pushing & moving process. I used a Bead-Burnisher to give me better access to those mini-claws where necessary.

 FINALLY EVERYTHING GOT FINISHED..YIPPEE! I was happy and so was my client.