Wandering through the streets of Cambria, Tim and I found this gorgeous
gem shop where I picked up several natural stones. One of them was a
beautiful Peruvian Blue Opal. At the time, I wasn't really sure what I
was going to do with them, but I knew I wanted to start working more
semiprecious stones and gems into my jewelry.A few weeks after we got home, I suddenly decided that I really wanted to make a pendant for myself with the Opal. So, without doing any research of the tools and techniques, I set about creating my first bezel setting.
Being so inspired, I couldn't be bothered to slow down to figure out if
I had the right materials at hand, I decided to just use whatever I
had. So I started off by taking a piece of large gauge sterling silver
wire and annealing it, then hammering it flat, then soldering the edges
together to create the bezel. I sanded the bottom flat, and thinned out the top edge.Since I didn't have any sheet to use for backing, I took an extra piece of hammered silver wire and created a bridge across the back, to help hold the stone in place.
Then I created my pattern around the bezel. Once I was happy with the
design, I soldered all the pieces in place and did all my finishing
work on and around the bezel.Then came the hard part. I discovered exactly WHY fine silver bezel wire is used: because its soft and you can easily push it down around the stone. Getting this bezel pushed in was next to impossible. I pushed, rolled, tapped, even lightly hammered the bezel into place until the stone was finally secure.
Doing all this roughed up the bezel setting so I had to hand sand and polish it again. But when I was done I was left with a rather pretty little pendant with much sentimental value.
I'm looking forward to making more like these, but I will definitely be using the right tools of the trade next time.
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