[Jewelry making - Article 00480] - Re: [Orchid] Cab calibration problems

[Sam Patania]

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    Dear Zen, 

    This is one of the problems I have had as a small manufacturer. I get
    around this with faceted stones by buying the machine cut stones then
    testing them out prior to full blow production. Cabs are a different
    problem and harder to produce with. I think the whole thing is that
    stone cutters don't set and setters don't cut stone. 

    I never have been able to buy a 4mm stone and a 4mm mount and have
    the two fit together as is. I always test first and have ,of course,
    learned the hard way by making a one of which I design to produce,
    costing it out, making the one only to find that I need to either
    buy 3 different sizes of stones and mounts to match up or taking the
    chance that I will be able to repeatedly get the same sizes of each
    which will fit. The former has never happened and I have priced out
    pieces only to find I can't get what  need at the price I thought I
    could. 

    This lesson has taught me to be patient with the production process
    and let it take the time it takes even if my clients don't understand
    why I can't just make the piece. I often use commissions to produce
    the prototype for a production piece. This lengthens the time it
    takes me to make the commission because of the stated problems and
    lord have mercy if I get stuck, then I am forced to get the
    commission done and worry about the production designs on my own
    time. For cabs I have found the only way to produce a quality product
    is to make bezels to fit each stone. I can work up a length of a
    particular gauge to cut for a certain size of stone but have found no
    way to actually have that fit each stone and quality suffers. 

    I find bezel cups are too thin and to hard to set because they are
    sterling ( I always use fine silver for bezels) and look like crap
    because they are die struck and somewhere along the perimeter of that
    bezel there is a crinkle. 

    I found that I can only use bezel cups in very few instances where
    price is the main criteria. 

Sam Patania, Tucson
www.patanias.com

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