This ring was inspired by photos of period rings, but with a modern twist. In my early years of buying gems, I had no idea what would make them nightmares to set. I wound up with a lot of pretty but difficult stones. This is the story of how I came to terms with one.

This stone is a round star ruby...it looked great under the bright lights at the seller's table, but I would never buy such a stone again!

You want to beware of a stone that has excess material. You are paying for the mass of the stone, so the heavier it is, the more it costs. A well-cut stone that costs more per carat might cost less than a heavy-cut less desirable gem. Pick up the stone and imagine making the setting for it. Move it out of the light and see if it is still appealing. Be choosy.

I could have made an inner ring of the bezel to balance it at the edges, but that wouldn't look "period", and I didn't want to go to the trouble. So I did prongs instead...that's not trouble?

The curvature is close but not close enough.

You can see that the seat is not high enough to grip the stone, so it's going to need a bezel. Even though I knew I would use prongs, the "period" cabochon settings often used both bezel (though not a true fit) and prongs.

Stone-cutting technology was not very advanced, so gems were often just polished free-form nuggets.

Sterling silver is more pure than the gold alloys used in jewelry. This means it's much softer and will not hold a polish between firings. However, you want to get rid of bumps, scratches, and such as you go (the "prepolish"). Some things you can't come back and touchup after the next step. There's just not enough room.

Whenever I solder a small or thin piece to a (relatively) big piece, I always pre-solder the small piece. This helps me get the solder to flow before the small piece gets melted. I heat the large piece until close to the solder flow temp, then introduce the small piece to its place. Timing is everything!

When I solder, I use intense magnification, and I'm seated so the solder and seam are at eye-level. If you can't see, you don't know when you are done. If you don't know when you are done, you will overheat whatever you are soldering. This is how firestain and melt-down occur.

Also, to make the whole operation easier, I used a separating disk in my flex shaft to cut a shallow seat for each prong. You can do this with a file instead. The prong seat helps get the prong in the right place, not the almost-right place. (Helps, but doesn't guarantee.)

I made this several years ago from a bit of pattern wire. It can make nice ring shanks, just be sure to match the width of the wire to the size of the ring. You don't want a thin shank with a heavy ring, or a large shank with a tiny gem.

Something to notice: the prongs are buried in the soldering block. This protects them and helps keep the joins from shifting around.

If you look closely, you will see that the ring shank has a distinct lean to the left, even though the opening is nicely balanced on the ring seat. I think I fiddled with this phase for about 10 minutes before I was satisfied.

Given the curved seat for the stone, I would not be able to put this on a ring mandrel and force it into a balanced condition. It had to be balanced before soldering.

Big mistake here though! Even though the pressure of the third-hand is light, it still presses down. The edges of the ring slipped down the curved seat just a bit before the soldering was done. This makes the setting sit lower, and gives less room for the finger to fit into the ring. Remember, metal expands when heated, and seams that are a tight fit when cold may shift or open up when hot.

Note that through all of this I have not trimmed the prongs much. They are still way too long for the finished product, but I wanted leverage when setting the gem. If you ever work in a gold alloy, you will need this leverage! Gold alloys have other metals in them (zinc, copper, silver, sometimes nickel), that's why gold jewelry is 'harder' than sterling jewelry.

If it's not in your way, don't be quick to trim anything. You may need it in a few minutes.

Something I wished I had learned earlier - save your finger joints. Don't try to hold a ring in your fingers and set stones. Use a ring holder so you can use a ham-fisted grip on the holder.

The prongs are just to make the ring look like a period piece. Oh yeah, and it gives me bragging rights.

I use a liver-of-sulphur solution to darken my silver. The solution is weak and cool, so it takes many minutes to get to the right level of tarnish. Not long before this, I had the most wonderful magenta, gold and peacock green colors! This final color is more of a peacock blue, not really a gray or black.

What is nice about corundum (the ruby) is that if I want all the tarnish off *now*, I just flux the whole thing, heat gently until the darkness is all burned off, and let it air-cool before pickling. Then the ring would look like it does two photos above.

Don't do that with anything but ruby, sapphire or diamond, and only *your own* gem.

Can you believe I waited four years to finally set this gem? I would rather never have purchased it in the first place, but hey, that's how you get experience. Some experience you just have to buy.

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