Bezel punch

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hello All,

I am having problems wrapping my brian around making bezels per a
bezel punch. The difficulties include, figuring out the correct
circumference to start out with, the size of hole to drill in the
center, how to keep the piece centered when punching so as to keep
the shape (mine seem to tilt during the puch and become oblong) and
how often to anneal ( every two punches is what I have ended up doing
which seem too often but needed). I have not been following the
orchids lately so I appologize if this have been a recent subject.

Thanks to all the talented people!
-Ann Madland

2

hi ann,

the bezel punch is designed to be used with a bezel that is already
formed in a conical shape. it is there to help you shore up the
already exisiting shape, not to create a cone from a tube-type
shape.

so, in order to make a concical shaped bezel, you can use your round
nose pliers. i believe tim mccreight has a formula for making the
perfect sized cone in the back of his book. but if it is not in that
book, look in oppi’s. it is kind of a pain to make it perfect the
1st time, which is why the bezel punch helps. but you can also eye
the size or measure as you form the bezel. use some sheet strip that
is a little taller than what you want in the end and also longer so
you can form it with some ease. if you are working with gold which
is more expensive, you can cut the strip to length and then form as
much as you can, hammer the ends together and solder, then form in
the bezel block. as a quick aside, once you hammer the ends
together, you can cut back through the unsoldered joint with your
saw blade then re-fit the ends together for a very perfect joint. i
also often do this when making rings. (thanks to tony lent for that
great tip!)

if you must start with a tube-type bezel form, then you will get the
unevenness after punching. when i do this, i just file off any
excess on the top and the bottom.

the hole size in the bottom just needs to be small enough that the
stone does not fall out. but other than that i am unsure about that
part of your question.

in addition, you might ask yourself why you want a conical bezel. it
is because you like the way it looks or is it necessary in order to
fit stones next to each other? if it is not necessary, you will do
just as well with a tube-type bezel! then you don’t have to go to
all the extra work of making the cone…

good luck!
joanna

3 
I am having problems wrapping my brian around making bezels per a
bezel punch. [snip] I appologize if this have been a recent
subject.

As it happens, I just bought one of these tools, for square bezels,
and I haven’t even tried it yet. I don’t believe it has been covered
on Orchid at all, at least in the years I’ve been a member. So
thanks for asking!

Noel

4 
I use my bezel blocks frequently to make bezels from annealed
straight wall tubing.

In fact, if the above rule was the case, I probably wouldn’t use
them much at all… I don’t often make bezels from washer shapes with
the blocks, but it can be done. I also form the rough shapes in gold
alloy sheet and form the bezels in the blocks. As long as you anneal
your pieces frequently they will form a taper very well. I find them
very handy, for more than just bezels- last week I made a pair of
caps for some briolettes that I set as earrings. Over the past 20
years I’ve collected quite a few bezel blocks as I have had a need for
new shapes. Otto Frei sells quite a range of shapes, tapers and sizes.

Rick Hamilton

5 
the bezel punch is designed to be used with a bezel that is
already formed in a conical shape. it is there to help you shore up
the already exisiting shape, not to create a cone from a tube-type
shape. so, in order to make a concical shaped bezel, you can use
your round nose pliers.

I use my bezel blocks frequently to make bezels from annealed
straight wall tubing. In fact, if the above rule was the case, I
probably wouldn’t use them much at all… I don’t often make bezels
from washer shapes with the blocks, but it can be done. I also form
the rough shapes in gold alloy sheet and form the bezels in the
blocks. As long as you anneal your pieces frequently they will form
a taper very well. I find them very handy, for more than just bezels-
last week I made a pair of caps for some briolettes that I set as
earrings.Over the past 20 years I’ve collected quite a few bezel
blocks as I have had a need for new shapes. Otto Frei sells quite a
range of shapes, tapers and sizes.

Rick Hamilton

6

The Otto Frei catalog has a whole page on how to use these - written
by Jeff Georgantes.

Linda

7

I purchased bezel punches in many different shapes and sizes several
years ago thinking I was solving a problem. I soon found out that
the punches themselves were difficult to use and a problem of their
own. I decided that since the punches were in fact for calibrated
stones,since they can only make a certain size and shape, I would be
better using cast bezels which could be made much more rapidly and
plentiful. Even if I needed only one bezel of a certain size I could
carve it and cast it better than the bezel punches would produce.
And if I only needed one bezel for one project why was I spending
that much money on a punch to make it?

I found that I needed to over size my materials and file down what
the punches made in order to get a good bezel and even then it was
always off center. Making a cone out of sheet and then employing the
punches to true it was such a long way 'round I could not bring
myself to spend the time. I had bought the punches to save time and
fabricating tiny cones was not saving time. Any of the punches with
corners like the trillion or rectange were useless because of the
stress the punch put in the corners would tear the metal.

I sold all but the round punch sets I had bought, and lost money but
I could not justify having spent that money to begin with. My
problem was that I didn’t know that at the time, I thought the
punches looked like the solution to the sort of small scale
production I do. Casting turned out to be the answer and I already
had the equipment.

I kept the round one for the once a year time I need to true up a
small cone, I think I just talked myself into selling that one too.

Sam Patania, Tucson
www.patanias.com

8

Sam, Why did you try to make a bezel out of a flat sheet? Why not
just solder a strip and then form it with the bezel punches? Trying
to invert a washer in one step from sheet to bezel is not really do-
able, most operations of this kind are done in at least two steps the
first at a much shallower angle than the second one. I have never
understood why the people who write instructions on using these
punches recommend the washer from flat sheet as the method for using
this tool. If you must have a seamless bezel then use a piece of
seamless tubing as your starting point We use them regularly for both
round and fancy shapes but never start with a washer always with
tubing.

Jim

James Binnion
@James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts

9

Owning a small Sherline lathe I’ve taken to turning a 17 tapered
cone (the angle on my bezel punch set) the desired height and outside
diameter of the proposed finished bezel, casting it up then doing the
punch process. You can achieve a bezel of any shape & height with
uniform wall thickness from top to bottom. For squares and triangles
one or two annealings are in order.

When turning the cone I bur out the interior with a 17 cone bur you
can purchase from Borel & Frei Jewelry Supply but a regular cone bur
works fine. You can adjust the depth of the interior by grinding off
the end of the bur to whatever depth you’re cutting. You will need to
pre-drill a center hole to the appropriate depth to compensate for
the blunt cone bur. Then I straight turn about 10mm beyond the bottom
diameter of the cone which serves both as a sprue point and an inline
“dowel” to pop it back in the lathe after casting where I’ll do a
quick finish cut before the punching.

A little more time consuming than the more spontaneous artist might
hope for but I get great bezels.

Les Brown
L.F.Brown Goldwork
17 2nd St. East, Ste. 101
Kalispell, MT 59901

10

James, I did make bezels out of sheet then tapeded them in ght bezel
block. Usually the bezel split at the top of the seam where most of
the stretching happens. When they split there was not much to do but
scrap it. I also didn’t like to cut seats in them. Cutting a seat in
a tapered bezel was a pain, I found it hard to estimate thickness
versus stone size and then getting the whole thing into the proper
punch hole. I just could never figure them out and for the
frustration I could have fabricated a straight wall bezel or cast a
bunch of them and had a better product.

Sam Patania, Tucson

11 
When they split there was not much to do but scrap it. I also
didn't like to cut seats in them. Cutting a seat in a tapered bezel
was a pain, I found it hard to estimate thickness versus stone size
and then getting the whole thing into the proper punch hole. I just
could never figure them out and for the frustration I could have
fabricated a straight wall bezel or cast a bunch of them and had a
better product.

I’ve never even worked in a shop that had bezel punches — I’ve
always thought of them as expensive toys. If I’ve ever needed to do
something like that, I just use the dapping block. Sometimes I just
put the bezel in a hole and hit it with a hammer, without a punch.
Then it squeezes the bottom without stretching the top.

12 
I did make bezels out of sheet then tapeded them in ght
bezel block. Usually the bezel split at the top of the seam where
most of the stretching happens. When they split there was not much
to do but scrap it. I also didn't like to cut seats in them.
Cutting a seat in a tapered bezel was a pain, I found it hard to
estimate thickness versus stone size and then getting the whole
thing into the proper punch hole. I just could never figure them
out and for the frustration I could have fabricated a straight wall
bezel or cast a bunch of them and had a better product.

Perhaps I’m the only one that does this? With round and oval bezels
in the bezel block, I fabricate a straight walled bezel that’s
almost the finished size of the upper, larger edge of the bezel. then
I use a press to just cram the bezel down into the hole in the block.
(For a press at work, I use the ram on our ring shrinker, which is an
old old model that uses individual little dies for the rings, not the
modern “disk” type with it’s inconvenient (to a bezel block, at
least) center pivot. In the home shop with newer
shrinkers/stretchers, I use a small arbor press or just the jaws of
the vise) The result is that all the movement of the metal in the
bezel is compression. No stretching of the upper wall of the bezel,
and thus no rips. After it’s pressed down in, I anneal and only then
use the punch to finish it off. The punch just evens out any ripple
or inconsistencies. With square or emerald cut types, I pretty much
fabricate the whole tapered bezel, but use the block to make sure
everything is trued up. Fixes any minor errors in the original
layout used to fabricate it, such as one side slightly too long, or
other such slipups. I’ve never found the instructions for these
blocks, usually to be found in places like the Rio Catalog, rather
than a decent book on jewelry making, to be all that useful.

but with the above method, it’s pretty cool, and fast. And has the
interesting side effect that you’ve started with the right metal
thickness for the upper edge of the bezel, and the metal below it,
ends up slightly thicker. This is often quite desireable for
strength, when that bezel is going to be soldered onto something like
a ring and then get a seat cut into the wall too… The method is
especially useful with the softer metals, like platinum, silver, or
yellow golds.

personally, I’m of the opinion that bezel blocks were never really
intended to be used as the common instructions suggest, since as
you’ve seen, upper edges stretch and tear if the punch is used to
expand the upper edge. As compression dies, they work much more
reliably. And the punch is then used only for the final stages of
finishing the shape and cleaning up any ripple or inperfect forming
from the pressing stage. And for truing up a fabricated bezel,
either to make sure everything is perfectly true, or for things like
making a number of exactly matching sizes, etc, then these things
make tapered bezels pretty routine.

Peter Rowe

13

In 1987 I took a week long advanced goldsmithing class with a very
talented master goldsmith, Jeffrey Fillmore Thompson, at the Revere
Academy. One component of the fabrication project for our practical
exercise in this course involved an interesting approach to forming a
cone shaped element from very thick sheet silver.

For the articulated bale of our pendant each student needed one half
of a tapered cone, which would then have openings pierced for 3
marquise (navet) shape accent stones. We grouped into 2 person teams
to make this part of the project. To form the cone we started with 2
mm thick (12 gauge) sheet. We scribed and sawed out a circle, then
dapped it into a hemisphere using a dapping block and round punches.
We then formed the hemisphere into a cone using a round tapered
bezel block.

Just as Peter has described in his latest post, this was more a
process of compression than of expansion. We forced the dome of the
hemisphere into a rounded point by driving it into the tapered holes
of the bezel block, first with diminishing sizes of round punches,
until we were able to begin using the pointed bezel block punch to
refine the shape of our cone.

This process required very frequent annealing and the skilled
application of the bezel block and punches, which were struck with a
hammer. We did not use a vise or employ mechanical force. Those of us
who had good partners, and were careful to anneal soon enough and
thoroughly enough, succeeded in fabricating a perfectly tapered cone
with the point intact. This form was subsequently sawn in half from
point to opening, providing each partner with the desired 1/2 tapered
cone for our bale.

Those teams who worked the block and punch too aggressively,
annealed too infrequently, and used the pointed punch too early in
the sequence, punctured the dome of the hemisphere and ended up with
a ragged hole where the point of the cone should have been, just as
the instructor assured us would happen.

Jeff was a fantastic teacher and a talented artist. I learned more
about goldsmithing in the 5 days of that workshop than I had in the
previous 5 years of self instruction. He taught me to approach the
bench and the work with a professional attitude, with focus and
clarity, to respect tools, and to endeavor to control them with skill
and confidence. Nearly twenty years later when I sit at a
goldsmithing bench I am still mindful of the simple words he
emphasized in his class; posture, patience, practice, perseverance,
precision, and perfection. I am thankful to have been able to work
with him.

Michael David Sturlin
www.michaeldavidsturlin.com