SETTING GEMSTONES in WAX (newer essay) - 60 photos

 I've been seeing this question many times "How to set stones in Wax? This question has appeared many times on "Ganoksin-Orchid" and I've written many essays on this topic.

 This time I'm using new 'never seen before' photos I'm now showing. 1) 'before setting' 2) 'during setting' in the wax, and 3) 'post setting' when possible.

 The reason why I took and saved these photos, is that many of my waxes are slowly crumbling. The 'shelf-life' of this casting wax is not measured in years, but only months.

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 When a gemstone is needed to be placed into a wax-claw ring, the best-proven method is to warm the stone first. The warm stone will find its own place in the wax, thus avoiding any of the 'hand-pushing' techniques.

This is the prime example of avoiding 'pushing the claws'. More examples to follow.

This particular wax ring was a 2-piece construction. I selected it because of its novelty for horse-lovers.

I like this 'horses-face' for its clear features. If there are any wax-casting irregularities, its best to clean up the wax before proceeding further.

 This ring top was starting to disintegrate in my fingers. Now in this photo-form I can 'save' it for posterity.

 This Gypsy-setting ring has many features that I wanted for this essay.

Already you can see some of the claws starting to break off, as this wax is about 8-10 years old.

 I chose this ring for its rather thick bezel, I didn't have many of my rings that had this bezel shape and thickness.

These '4 bracelet links' had one feature and this was the 4 sizes of stones that were needed.

 When you are dealing with ultra-small stones, just let the warm temperature of the stone allow the wax to envelope the stone.

Make sure that all of the holes are "pre-drilled" before and stone setting is to start. 

This large casino-disk has one drawback is that this disk was not made of wax, but of plastic. 

  This is a fine example of a 'wax-claw setting' before being inserted into the main ring. 

  As seen in a previous photo, this bezel shows the thickness of the walls for the stone.

                           MORE PHOTOS OF WAX ITEMS "PRIOR TO SETTING".

   This disk has the best thickness of claws in my wax-inventory. WAX claws?

 These wax samples are the culmination of very careful handling of the 'stones to the wax'. If your 'fingers and hands' are prone to "shaking",  then let your caster assist you in this very delicate task.

                 SORTING THE STONES IN THE WAX

 For this extensive essay, I'm using only CZ's (Cubic Zirconia) gemstones, as it's less expensive stone to use.  In this ring, there are only 14 stones.

 This particular ring is a two-piece construction, the "horseshoe pattern" can be soldered after the metal soldering. For wax setting this can be overlooked, as we can see shortly.

 As you can easily see the 'pseudo-claws' are so small and all that is needed is to set the stones in the wax.

  Here is the complete inventory of items that I will be using in this extensive essay.

    The range of stone sizes for this essay is from 6mm stone to 0.15 mm. 

  

 This is the position of the 'warmed needle' of the wax pen. The needle is resting against the "Crown Facets" of the stone. 

   I'm using the tip of the wax-heating pen against a 10mm stone as this is for easier  viewing display.

 You can see the gentle 'warming' start to take place. The heating pen MUST NEVER BE HOT, but just warm, why?

 You must control the actions of the 'warmed stone' at all times. If the stone is HOT, the stone will sink into the wax and the whole project could be ruined.

 

  This is my heating pen equipment with its Rheostat gauge that controls the heat to the pen-tip.

                   PLACING THE STONES IN THE WAX

  This stone MUST FIT INTO THE BEZEL with no effort!

   The "TABLE-FACET" must be lower than the tip of the Bezel.

 

  Prior to setting of the stone, view if there are any 'extra pieces of wax' to interfere with the final setting of the stone. This is being seen in this photo, not to mention that all of the bezel should be clean and no defects are being seen prior to casting. 

 

 It is imperative that all of the bezel walls are 'free of any pieces of waxes' underneath to obstruct the Culet from being set.

 Place the stone against the opening to measure its size, against the wax.

 Place the warm pen-tip onto the "Table-Facet", not the "Crown Facets", if the touching of the "Crown-Facets" the stone might get crooked. This can and might happen often!!!

 Allow the eyelid of the horses eye to be exactly the correct size.

  The final of three stones is for the horses-nostril, again size is so very critical here.

 

 If there is extra wax situated anywhere, get rid of it as soon as possible with an 'Exacto Blade' as what I'm using here.

 

 Is this the stone you REALLY need? Once you select and insert your stone you may continue further. Is the center of the hole in the wax cleaned prior to your setting?

 

 WARM UP THE STONE, but not to make it HOT. Do you see just where the tip of the pen is touching?

Watch to see that the wax is slowly oozing around the Girdle of the stone, this "oozing" will be metal after the casting. There is no need to 'push over any metal' after the casting process.

 With a sharp knife, clean any unwanted wax around the stone. This is a definite "MUST DO NOW"! Please remember that all of the unwanted wax will be metal.

 This disk display was not made of wax, BUT OF PLASTIC. A warmed pen will not do justice to the stone setting process, not to mention that these claws might break off during the heating of the plastic. 

  I suggest to hold the plastic model rigid and not let the item move. During this process I had the misfortune of having 2-3 plastic claws break. This was a very irritating experience during this photo-taking aspect of this essay. 

 

  I was experiencing some problems when these claws broke even if they were only plastic.

 Already you can see 2 claws that are now missing. I 'saved this problem' for you to see for yourself.

 I put this 'plastic disk' securely on my bench-pin, as each stone needed to be positioned without any problems.

   The Gypsy setting needs to be watched for any irregularities during the stone-setting process. Every stone must have the "Table-Facet" sitting below the Bezel Tube/rim.

 Prior to any stone setting, the setting-hole must be made perfectly round and not oval (as shown here).

 The wax ring must be free of any defects prior to any metal casting. Clear any other areas for the Culet before being set. Even if the ring itself MUST BE SMOOTHED AND FREE OF LITTLE WAX HOLES.

  

  When you are working with a new ring that hasn't being drilled, the holes must be well centered.  The confusion afterwards, could be of major concern to you. 

 These 4 bracelet links were an afterthought with selecting a wax for this essay, why is this? The was an abundance of stones to use, not to mention the size of stones, there were 4 sizes of stones for each link.

  Imagine if this was a longer bracelet with many more links. How many stones would be needed and what sizes? The costs would be a major concern prior to metal casting.

 I suggest that you should cast the links in wax and do your cost evaluation before the metal casting.

 REMOVE ANY UNWANTED & RESIDUAL WAX around any stone, why? That wax is much easier at this stage than after the metal casting. Imagine cleaning metal around each and every stone? 

   GET RID OF THE UNWANTED WAX...NOW!

  This "Lucky 7" ring has more luck in store as it has all the 'suites' of a card game.

 (I personally designed this CAD ring myself).

 The setting of these stones was very delicate. There was no allowance for any shaking of fingers, whew!

 

 This "Star of David" for a Hebraic translation "Magen David" was not an easy task, why? All of the pseudo-beads were too small even in the wax. I wanted to show how difficult some wax-setting can get. 

This wax was one of the items where the wax was starting to crumble.

  

    These stones were 0.015mm in diameter. There was a 50% chance of failure, I took that chance. I placed all of my delicate waxes on a wax sheet and trimmed the sheet to fit my fingers.

  These stones were of the correct size, but again the claws were giving me a rough time as many were breaking as I tried to set a few. I persevered the difficult task.

  I managed to select the correct sizes, as the center stone needed to larger than the outside 2 stones. 

As you can see that many of the claws were damaged, I didn't have the luxury of time in having my caster make more samples for me.

 I attempted to set a few of these stones, but alas luck nearly ran away from me. I had the last stone to set and that last claw literally broke in my fingers.

 Remember that no claws were moved to hold any stone. The 'warmed stone' was held secure by being carefully set into the wax.

 Long before any stone was set, I examined every hole just to be sure that the Culet of EACH STONE WAS FREE OF ANY WAX. (View the undrilled hoes on the bottom right corner).

 I had little opportunity in selecting the same size of stones for the 28 that were needed. 

If the wax-pen got too warm, it would heat the stones to a point of needing to inject a new wax pendant. TIME AND LABOUR COULD BE WASTED.

 I remember that I used to set the same design when I learned to be a Diamond Setter in 1965.

The 'horseshoe' gemstones were set first, then following this, the horseshoe was soldered into the ring. This was a '2 piece construction', culminating into great looking ring.

  INTERESTING HISTORY OF THE JEWELLERY TRADE IN TORONTO, CANADA.

 Long before we had "CAD" (Computer Aided Design) many patterns were made one ring at a time.

 If the manufacturer wanted rings for the salespeople, we, the Diamond Setters had to allow time for the complex designs to be made. Even back then rings were not mass produced in a few days. How times have changed?

 I remember one incident that the 'metal caster' ruined blazing HOT flasks of gold by quenching the still HOT flasks of gold into cold water. All of the diamond setting that we did for that whole week was also ruined for hundreds of rings.

 The rapid cooling of the diamonds was in jeopardy, why? He forgot that those flasks had diamonds in them. Not to mention that those flasks needed to 'cool down' while still in the 'cooling down' casting oven.