[Jewelry making - Article 00972] - Re: [Orchid] Good sapphires set in silver

[John Donivan]

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>     Nothing I have seen in this thread has provided any specific or
>     uncontroversial reason why silver cannot be used for setting "fine"
>     or "precious" stones 

    With my kid gloves on this time...... I think most people on this
    thread miss the point. As one boasted the other day "I could make all
    that stuff in silver". Well, of course you could, or a qualified
    person could. I could make most of them in copper. The point is, can
    you sell it. And I don't mean "will the public buy it", I mean are
    you really going to put out a 10 carat diamond set into those prongs?
    Take as a good example a ballerina ring (if they were selling to
    begin with lately...) with some big center stone and like 4 point
    baguettes. And take into account the strength of materials, as is our
    job. You can set those baguettes with something like 22 gauge wire in
    gold, 24 gauge in platinum (though you'd likely use the drawplate, so
    it could be 23 gauge). If you set diamond baguettes into 24 gauge
    silver prongs, with a bearing cut, you're going to be able to pull
    them off with a fingernail, and if you put that job out you'll start
    getting returns in a week. 

    You're going to need at least 20 gauge, which is going to bury the
    diamonds under metal. Yes, it can be made in silver, but to make it
    in silver with any knowlegable sense of confidence that it won't come
    back on you is going to be something entirely different than if it
    were done in platinum. Modelmakers, at least good ones, make platinum
    jewelry in silver, but they don't sell the the silver rings, they
    make molds of the models. As I've said many times here - I personally
    don't care if someone wants to set anything into anything - it's the
    idea that something like the ballerina can be tossed off in silver
    without allowing for the differing properties. You can, but it will
    haunt you. You can set a fine 10 carat diamond into silver, but the
    prongs (nobody in their right mind would bezel set it unless it
    was.5mm platinum) and the supporting ring structure will be so fat,
    so you the maker can sleep nights, that it will be something
    considerably less than what it could be by simply choosing something
    stronger to begin with. Again, a great deal of the reasoning behind
    using gold or platinum is not snobbery, it's engineering. 

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com
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