Setting stones in steel

Can't just drill to the right depth and size then upset the edges a hair to grab the stone? Isn't that a gypsy setting?
 
I know it can be frustrating offering me advice. It did not escape my attention that Page asserted I would ignore any advice offered. I'm not trying to be headstrong or stupid. There are some very real and practical limitations I cannot avoid. One of those is time. I have a full time job that actually consumes more than 40 hours a week. I have little space in which to work, I have few of the tools that most take for granted. All of these are excuses, I grant you. If I really wanted to be an artisan I'd set them aside and plow forward with determination.

So what I do instead is plod along on my own, letting my resources and ideas dictate the path and the speed of the journey. I don't really have a destination in mind or a need to be somewhere at a given time. I'm just enjoying the scenery and the hike.

I know I may seem ungrateful, but I'm not. I do appreciate what everyone has to offer. I weigh the suggestions and move forward as it seems right to me to do so. If at some point in the future I decide I really want to be an artisan, I'll remember your advice. It will not have been wasted.

For now, I'm an outsider creating "folk art". It may not be what a real artist considers art, but it's mine and that's fine.

- Greg
 
those stones will be difficult to work with for what you think you will be doing. My advice is start with a soft metal and teach yourself stone setting, then start a new guard with a metal you can work easily. Doing your first one in 1095 is not a good idea, those cabuchons will be difficult to work with. You would be better carving prongs and setting them with prongs. Tai is correct that this should have been thought out ahead of time

-Page
 
tryppyr said:
I don't really have a destination in mind or a need to be somewhere at a given time. I'm just enjoying the scenery and the hike.- Greg
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That's fine Greg, but it makes it pretty much impossible to help you on your journey. If this is the case,... you don't need any help.
 
At present, I have very little invested in this sub-project, so the opportunity exists to start over with different metal. I don't have anything softer t work with that I know of, other than some "mild steel" from Lowes.
 
Greg -- You have a good ally in your wife. She could probably help you out with this. If you/she can do some soldering (nonferrous) you might want to try an approach something like this. -- All the best, Phil
  • Make or purchase silver bezel cups the size and shape of your cabs.
  • Solder one onto each end of a piece of brass or copper rod of the same diameter such that it makes the combined pieces long enough to go through the guard and have the stones protrude to the level you want on each side.
  • Set the stones and polish (or do so at the end of the following steps if the bezels protrude enough).
  • Drill a hole through the guard the diameter of your double-cabochon-ended rod.
  • Insert rod and epoxy/CA in place.
  • Drill a small hole in through the end of the guard and into the rod (centered between the two bezel cups.) If you can swivel/pivot/ream the hole such that it is a little wider at each end that would be most excellent.
  • Pin/rivet with silver through the guard and into the rod.
It probably sounds more complex than it would actually be to do. It would just take some finessing.

Never a dull moment at your place! Good luck with whatever you try. Keep us posted.
 
Let’s turn around and go back to the very beginning of this idea…

Without seeing the rest of the knife or at least some kind of drawing first, it’s hard to tell whether the stone settings would look good or just goofy? Do you plan on using settings and/or jewelry work in other places on the handle to tie them in? If not, they’ll probably just look odd and out of place.
 
Phil Dwyer said:
Greg -- You have a good ally in your wife.
.
.
.
Never a dull moment at your place! Good luck with whatever you try. Keep us posted.
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You are right on both counts. She often says the same thing to me about there never being a dull moment. When I mentioned to her what I was working on last night she rolled her eyes and said "Why would you want to do that?" Truthfully, I have no clear answer to that question.

Anyway, all this talk of moving metal and setting with prongs got me thinking. So I decided to try something... just to see how difficult it would be. I'm thinking it is possible to make the prongs integral. I figure, what have I got to lose? If it works, fine. If not, I start over, perhaps using softer metal. Anyway, here's the drill... start with the dimples I mentioned before.

Guard2.JPG


Then using a flat round diamond bit for the Dremel flatten the base on which the stone will ultimately sit. Before anyone comments, yes, I know the holes are not perfectly round yet... but bear with me.

Guard3.JPG


Next, undercut the lip of the hole using the same undercutting bit that I used on the caduceus knife to give the snakes their 3D separation at the overlaps. You can't really see it in this picture, but trust me, the lip is undercut by about 1/16th of an inch.

Guard4.JPG


The final step (yet to be done) is to carve away the lip everywhere but the places where the prongs will be. Then I'd bend back two of the prongs, angle the stone into place, and tap the prongs back over the stone.

That's the theory, anyway. And because I'm a belt and suspenders guy, I'd probably put glue on the table too.

- Greg
 
… If you want to be a “folk artist“,… then just carve the knife out of wood, paint it and glue a bunch of cheap rhinestones on.
 
Greg,
I will tell you how I might approach this situation with your tooling and abilities.
Get a tube of soft metal that has an ID the size of your cabs. Brass, copper, sterling will all work.Copper is cheap and easy to find. It will look good after it patinas,too.

Drill a hole just a tad smaller than the tubing OD through the guard ends. Shape the guard and get it finished to the degree desired. The holes will allow you to keep the center for the cabs as you sand down the end balls.

Once the guard is ready, carefully enlarge the holes with drills/burrs until the tube is a press fit. Clean everything up and soft solder the tube in place with about 6mm sticking out each side. It will only take a small amount of solder to wick completely around and through the joint. Clean up any over-run and wash the guard up. Check to see that the cabs still all will fit in the tubes, and either sand the tube slightly, or use a diamond burr to trim the edges of the cabs to fit. When the stones are ready, test fit by placing two back to back in the tube. Measure the thickness of the two cab stack. Now determine the thickness of their desired position in the guard end. If ,for instance, the two cab stack measure 8mm, the guard is 12mm, and you want each cab to stick out 3mm, then the desired stack thickness is 18mm. That means you need the cabs to sit in a stack with a space of 10mm. Cut a piece of dowel 10mm long and test fit the stack in the tube.You may need to trim sand some dowel to fit the tube snug. Trim down the excess tubing until the bezel lip height is what you want - 2mm is probably fine. When all is ready, glue the dowel in the tube with a tiny drop of CA. You can glue the cabs in place at that time,too, if you wish. Have your wife show you how to burnish down the tubing to hold the cabs in place. Make a burnisher from a piece of 1/2" round steel and taper the end into a blunt point. Polish it to a mirror finish. Put a hardwood dowel handle on it and you are ready to go. Start with the wood end to push in he bezel, then burnish slowly with the steel end and go both directions. Use your Dremel with a 3/4" bristle wheel and some Zam or similar polish to clean up the bezels.

Using this method and a smaller tube instead of the dowel,you can mount faceted stones in the guard,too.

Now, about cab choices...
Those unakites will spall badly ( they already are) and not look nearly as good as you think. The tigers-eye ( cats-eye is an entirely different stone) will be a bit better, but still will spall badly. I would suggest a solid color stone with a reasonable hardness and smooth surface. Black onyx cabs, or Garnet cabs come to mind as cheap and good looking. Garnet was a standard in the blades of yore with stone embellishment. You can also find both in a faceted top cab, which adds a lot to the look.
I would also go with 6mm or 8mm cabs, as after burnishing down the bezels, 4mm cabs will show only about 3mm.
 
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Many thanks, Stacy. I'll start looking for better stones now. I already have some brass tubing of about the right size, but I'll see what else is available.
 
Just one more note about why the through hole works much better. No matter how well you measure and drill, the two recesses will never be in exactly the same position, and the seats will almost surely be rotated slightly out of the same axis. With a through hole, a tube, and a square ended center plug, the axes will all line up exact.

The guard looks good so far, and should be easy to drill out for a tube. Brass would be fine for such a small bezel. Remember to anneal whatever tubing you use before installing it. You want the bezel to be dead soft when burnishing it down. Copper is very malleable, which is why it was used long ago as a common setting metal. Sterling tubing is easy to get from a supplier, and a 12" piece will last a long time. The recent rise in metals prices has pushed the cost up, but it is still fairly affordable. A .188" OD tube has a 4mm ID. A 12" long piece should run about $30. Try Rio Grande for a non- professional source.
 
Good suggestions. I just did a quick scan of Rio Grande. Seems almost all of their sterling tubes are hard... only one I found was dead soft and it was the wrong size. So then I did a Google search and found some dead soft sterling tubes... measured in gauge instead of mm or inches. I did find one supplier that had sizes going up to 5mm inside diameter, but no indication of whether it is hard or soft.

Still looking. The quest continues.
 
tryppyr said:
Good suggestions. I just did a quick scan of Rio Grande. Seems almost all of their sterling tubes are hard... only one I found was dead soft and it was the wrong size. So then I did a Google search and found some dead soft sterling tubes... measured in gauge instead of mm or inches. I did find one supplier that had sizes going up to 5mm inside diameter, but no indication of whether it is hard or soft.

Still looking. The quest continues.
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Try www.monsterslayer.com they probably have the best tubing out of all the silver suppliers and they should have the cabs you want, the cab selection varies but for silver they have it all.
 
Hard sterling silver can be annealed easily. Make a solution of boric acid dissolved in denatured alcohol, coat the tubing in this solution in a room with no smoke detector and good ventilation and very dim light (or outside in the near dark) on a fire resistant surface. Use a torch with a broad flame (Bernzomatic plumbers MAPP torch is cheap and will provide enough heat) do small lengths of probably 2 inches heat to a dull glow then quench in a solution of sodium bisulfate (available in hot tub and pool supply stores as a product called "PHDown")

-Page
 
tryppyr said:
Good suggestions. I just did a quick scan of Rio Grande. Seems almost all of their sterling tubes are hard... only one I found was dead soft and it was the wrong size. So then I did a Google search and found some dead soft sterling tubes... measured in gauge instead of mm or inches. I did find one supplier that had sizes going up to 5mm inside diameter, but no indication of whether it is hard or soft.

Still looking. The quest continues.
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You can easily aneal non ferrous metals with a propane torch. A quick google search will bring up plenty of information on this.

Another issue you may have is ebay cabochons very likely will not be perfectly round, of uniform size/shape, of similar color to each other, or well polished. The only way to get well matched cabochons is to pick them out yourself.
 
tryppyr said:
Sounds like I have everything I need for the annealing. Thanks!
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It will take you about 30 seconds to do it, very easy. Some pieces are annealed many times for deep stamping, etc.

A small cheap crock pot from the dollar store will work great to keep your pickle (ph down) warm if you plan on doing this much.
 
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Annealing non-ferrous metals is not exactly the opposite of steel.
Since it has no carbon content, you can quench or air cool.
 
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