[Jewelry making - Article 01455] - Re: [Orchid] PMC bezel cup for gold

[lora hart]

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Hi Nicole,

    With either silver or gold metal clay you'd have to make a
    mechanical bond. The fine silver bezel cup won't *bond* or fuse to
    the fine silver metal clay just as it won't fuse to gold. Hadar
    Jacobsen has a good tute in her new book for implanting bezel cups.
    I'll give my version. 

    Since metal clay shrinks and puts pressure on the cup, it may warp
    if fired in place. If, for some reason, you can actually fire with
    the stone in the cup, you'll be okay. I *have* fired with just the
    cup set into a slab of clay three cards thick and it came out fine. I
    just use the open end of the cup as a cutter and after setting it in
    the resulting hole (use some thick slip in the hole first), I wiggle
    it around to expand the clay a bit. The clay shrinks up to the bezel
    and locks it in place. I also like to scratch up the side walls of
    the bezel to give the metal some *tooth*. Helps the slip and clay
    stick to the milled metal better. 

    If you're concerned about the color difference of the cup when used
    with gold clay, you could fire and then either Keum Boo or use Aura
    22 or AGS to *plate* the cup before setting the stone. 

HTH. Good luck with your setting.
Lora
LoraHart.Com
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