Crown Setting

Posted March 21, 2014

In all my time at the bench I’ve been mostly enamoured of metal and have not really gone down the stone setting path. No longer!

I have new tools and a treasure of stones (more on that soon!) and just in case there was any doubt about the plan – a 10^th Anniversary ring commission forcing me to get on with it!

So, sitting down with my two new best friends, John Cogswell “Creative Stonesetting” and Anastasia Young “Gemstone Settings”, it was time to tackle the making of a crown setting.

A beautiful iolite stone was the initial inspiration and after dusting off my compass (seems there’s a bit of math involved in making a crown setting!) and unpacking my new bezel forming block, it was time to go!

There was quite a bit of scratching my head and wondering what I was doing but that’s’ all part of the learning process. A 3 prong setting was quite a challenge to start with but it really suited the design and I’m glad I persevered.

Eventually a beautiful new piece was born out of the mess on my bench.