How do you set uncut diamonds?

I was looking at a book on royal jewels from around the world, and noticed
some striking pieces from India, set with many uncut but polished diamonds.
Then while searching the web, I found this place
http://www.karishmajewelry.com/, where you can see some beautiful necklaces
with uncut diamonds. My question is, how do they set those things? If you
look closely at the images, the diamonds seem to be set in white metal
within the gold matrix of the design. Seems like maybe the diamonds are set
into molten white gold somehow?

Dale wrote:
I was looking at a book on royal jewels from around the world, and noticed
some striking pieces from India, set with many uncut but polished diamonds.
Then while searching the web, I found this place
http://www.karishmajewelry.com/, where you can see some beautiful necklaces
with uncut diamonds. My question is, how do they set those things? If you
look closely at the images, the diamonds seem to be set in white metal
within the gold matrix of the design. Seems like maybe the diamonds are set
into molten white gold somehow?


Most of them look like normal bezels, but there are a few
that look like the stone has been pressed into warm wax,
and the wax subsequently cast. The photos are fuzzy, but
I suspect the stones stay in these by small beads being raised
on the settings, or the metal being pushed over the stone
a bit with a burnisher. (The pieces look a bit too good for
me to suspect the use of epoxy.)

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 07:49:21 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry "Dale"
wrote:

My question is, how do they set those things? If you
look closely at the images, the diamonds seem to be set in white metal
within the gold matrix of the design. Seems like maybe the diamonds are set
into molten white gold somehow?

That "white" rim is just a trick of the light. These are just hammer set
bezels. Uncut diamonds may not have quite as even a girdle to set with, but
any edge that you can trap in a bezel can be set, and the uncut status of the
stone doesn't make it all that much harder. You make a normal enough bezel cup
that will enclose the stone you wish to set, only you're making it of fairly
thick metal, perhaps a millimeter or so thick, and you make it slightly too
small. Now, to set the stone you just use whatever small burs (usually ball
burs) to cut a seat for the stone. The irregular shape of the stone means
you're carving the matching shape into the inside of the bezel by cutting,
trying, cutting, trying, working till it fits, rather than just using a standard
setting bur and just cutting a flat seat. This sounds tedious, but goes faster
than it sounds. Good setters who do fancy colored stones often do it the same
way, since such stones rarey match an existing setting bur anyway, and the seat
always has to be custom fitted for a good job. Anyway, after the stone fits
down into the bezel and on it's seat well enough, the edge is just hammered
down. In this case, probably with a hammer handpiece, but chasing tools work
too, and are safer for fragile stones. After the stone is tight, the top edge
is then smoothed out and polished. In the case of the pictured items, the top
edge of the bezel is polished fairly flat, and the apparent white look is just
that it's very reflective, and is reflecting the light of the photographer's
lights more than other parts of the jewelry, which may not be both in a flat
plane and polished. It could also have been rhodium plated, but frankly, I
doubt it. The lights would be enough to make it look like the images, and
rhodium, I think, would have looked whiter still.

Peter