[Jewelry making - Article 00377] - Re: [Orchid] Making micro mosaics

[Judy Hoch]

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    Making bezels 

>         Let's say I have a strip of metal that is 1mm thick and
>     precisely 1" long.    If I form that into a circle, which
>     circumference is precisely 1" - the outside, the inside, or the
>     mid-point between the two?  In other terms, does the outside
>     surface "stretch" or does the inside surface "compress" when
>     forming the circle? I'm trying to be much more precise in my
>     creation of bezels, rather than simply hand-fitting them - that
>     works for many cases, but not all, and this conceptual problem has
>     been bugging me for a while. " 

    I think this is an answer to your question - when I make a bezel for
    any regular shape such as an oval or circle, I use an equation to
    figure the bezel length. 

    (diameter of stone + bezel thickness) * 3.15 =3D length of strip for
    bezel. 

    For example - for a 12 mm x 16mm oval set in 28 gauge bezel, the
    numbers look like this: 

	(12+16)/2 is the average diameter of oval or 14mm,
	and 0.35mm is the thickness of 28 gauge bezel strip,
	and 3.15 is a useful approximation for pi,
	(14+.35)*3.15 =3D 45.2025mm which I would cut as a bit over 45mm. 

    I'm probably weird, but for me this is much much quicker than trying
    to fit each stone manually. 

    When I make a bezel in gold for irregular stones, I hand fit the
    bezel in fine silver of the same thickness as the planned gold
    bezel, mark the length on the silver, then cut the bezel in gold,
    adding a skosh because the gold is more difficult to shape exactly.
    Then solder the unshaped bezel, and then fit the annealed gold to
    the stone.  If the stone has a regular shape, I use the same formula 
    as I described above.


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