How to Flush Set Round Gemstones - A Detailed Look

let me talk you through how to flush set gemstones my name's Andrew berry and welcome to at the benches YouTube channel in the last film I went through the equipment that we needed for flush setting I'll link the film up by here and also in the previous film too that I quickly showed you how I set this garnet in a piece of silver again I will link that film up by here in case you haven't seen it in that particular film setting the guy I didn't talk through exactly why I was doing it and what protest was going on in my head but this film now we're going to be going through exactly the what I'm thinking and how we're going to be flush set in some stones again I've got a little bit of silver that we're gonna be setting this into this is a flat piece of silver just putting it into a vise something that is going to hold onto the piece because if we're going to be drilling into it we're gonna be burying into it we're gonna be putting a bit of force onto it when we come to set so whatever you put the metal into has to be quite safe and sturdy not much point trying to hold it in your hands you're not gonna get accuracy that way for me I've got this little bench made system here and I've got one of these little jaws fastened into this you can do it that way you can put it into a ring clamp if you wanted to and you could flush there that way there are lots of different fixtures and fittings that you can use to hold your piece that you're flush has an into but for this demonstration we're using one of these GRS fittings okay so we got a look at the depth of the stone the thickness of the plate or the thickness of the piece you're actually setting into now the stones I'm going to be setting today are literally just two and a half millimeter stones and they obviously have a depth the depth on a two and a half millimeters stone these cubic zirconias C Z's as you Americans like to call them is in the region of 1.5 millimeters in depth so I'm thinking the metal should be at least one point five millimeters deep that means the stone table will be flush with the surface and also the cubit the bottom of the stone then we'll be just towards the bottom of the plate now if you had this into a ring you don't really want the bottom of the stone sticking down into your finger so the plate or the piece of metal has to be set into has to be at least one and a half millimeters in thickness all right so that's what immediately what I'm thinking of if this is going into a brooch or into a locket it doesn't matter about the depth as long as you've got enough depth to set the stone into okay it doesn't matter then about the bottom of the stone sticking down below into the locket or into the brooch or whatever but if it's a ring it has to be at least the depth of the stone preferably a little bit more as well so that's the first thing the other thing where you can get round this actually is a lot of Victorians used to use a very sort of similar technique and we can use that same technique by getting a blunt burr is that when you're cutting a seat for the stone to sit on if the bird is slightly blunt it may push the metal downwards which what the Victorians used to do with some of the lockets these are set stones into the seat wasn't necessarily cut into the metal it was pushed down with pressure from a press into the locket itself so the stone was always protected underneath you can do that with a blender delbert as you drill down hard the metal will actually be forced downwards to make the bottom of the plate that make sense the plate and then if it be pushed downwards they'll protect the stone any but I'm not gonna be doing that today so two and a half millimeter stones so okay so what's going on my head now all right so if you are setting one single stone it doesn't matter in but the size of the drill it can be a 1 mil drill it can be a one and a half millimeter drill wouldn't really go much bigger than one and a half or 1.8 millimeter as we use in two and a half millimeter stones if you're setting quite a few within the plate and perhaps they all want to be in a line or in my cell a square little group and the spacings between each one has to be exactly the same width then what I would do is use a small drill initially to put the holes initially where you want the stones to be set then have a look and see how accurate that is if then the stones are slightly not exactly where you need them you can then come along to a starting bigger sized drill and as you drill down you can pull the drill or this ease a little bit of pressure towards one edge or the other and that will make sure then that the hole will be pulled to one side so all your spacers will be nice and even you can do it that way with a drill or you can use something like a bud burr or a ball burn do exactly the same technique go down and then just ease the ball build a bud burr to one size just to close up the gaps that you may have if your initial drilling was slightly inaccurate so what have I got in front of me two and a half millimeter stones yeah I've also got a point nine millimeter drill I've also got a 1.5 millimeter drill and then I've also got some straight sided teton burrs and I've also got some ninety degrees set in burrs as well what size of the burrs they say they are two and a half millimeter so my stones are two and a half millimeter to compare the stone off there okay so pop my stone into a gauge this is a leverage gauge this is like a millimeter gauge and we can use this chemical acid on there we go to measure the diameter of the stone that comes in spot-on two and a half millimeter then you can always then get your setting bur your straight-sided setting bur and put that in between and just see how it goes and in fact this is a slightly slightly smaller it maybe a bird that I'm used a few times and so it is slightly worn let's try another one yeah they're all pretty much the same I got quite a few birds here there's a slight slight gap what science is about one and a quarter what size house two and a half mil setting bursa let's try them yep okay so they are all a fraction smaller than my two and a half millimeters stone that is what I'm after I don't want to make I'll get an exact size bird for the exact size hole because sometimes that bill will slightly move around a little bit which may enlarge the hole so when the two and a half millimeter stone goes in it's gonna be too big and it's gonna wobble so I'd rather make the hole a tenth of a millimeter or hot half of half of a tenth even even less than that smaller what I actually need is always nice for the stone to fit in nice and flush you can also do this with a ball Burroughs well now a ball bear would have the advantages that being a ball and beans it's in that sort of a shape itself if the stone is a 2.5 2.45 it doesn't matter too much the stone would be set slightly a fraction lower but it'll be held nice and tight because of the shape of the bearing of what the ball burr actually does but I like using these straights either setting prism what else my company of anything else so what we're going to do is simply get a little graver I'm gonna put a little hole right in the center of this disc it could be anywhere in the disc it really doesn't matter and we're going to be using that then as the initial point to drill through with our one millimeter drill I've also got on my bench I'm not sure where it is that some some bird life some cut loop and that's going to help lubricate the burrs and the drills as well going through the silver because it is quite thick do we have to drill all the way through no you don't because the brilliance usually of a diamond comes from what light enters into the top scene don't have to cut all the way through the hose could be blind so they don't go all the way through they could be just going down far enough for the stone to go into the hole the problem that you do have then is that there's no way for any dirt that may get trapped under the stone to be removed there's no way for that dirt to come out it'll have to come out through the top as the place it went in but if you drill all the way through it's a nice easy way of getting into the back of the stones you can use a toothbrush or your ultrasonic to get any dirt that may be trapped behind the stone and get that taken away a lot lot easier so that's the advantage of drilling all the way through massive massive piece of metal don't even bother trying to do that a blind hole will be fine okay so let's just get the flex shaft we're gonna use a flex shaft for this you could use a dremel but the speeds are usually too fast so who have got a dream we'll try and get it on a slower speed than what they have and we're gonna be using the flex shaft now to do all the drilling and the bourbon okay so here we go so let's just mark the center with a graver if you don't have a graver well then you could also use something like a center punch or a scribe literally just to make a mark wherever you need to we're just gonna put that right in the center like that then we're going to get our drill as I said this is a I think is about one millimeter drill we're gonna put a little bit of burr life onto this first of all just to give a little bit of lubrication we've got a little hole by there let's just get the tip of that drill all right into the little divot and that will help us have a nice accurate hole so you notice the way I'm drilling I've got all my fingers I've got three fingers to go finger I here finger here a finger here so this little finger little fingers my ring finger of my right hand is acting as a guide this little one here as well is also act as a guide and we've got my thumb and my forefinger holding it onto the flex shaft so we've got a nice secure hold we've also got a nice stability as well so we're not going at it like this voting me just drilling straight the way down we've got nice controlled movement we can do this we can drill and we've got it all nice and accurate and go down so you can go on it off it's quite a thick bit of metal so we go through like that I'll save all those little shavings it's that's the one hole that we've got if we were drilling others we would then carry on and drilling a few more as it is now I've just got one more drill and this is butt 1.4 1.5 millimeters again I'm gonna put a little bit of lubrication on this as well and we got this hole that we can now come down with our slightly larger drill there we go again keep all the little shavings so that's the hole that we've got we've got our stone that comes along and the stone there's going to go into that little hole so now we've got that hole done so what I've also got next is gonna be a ball burr so now the advantage of using a ball boot on the next stage is or a bird burr is it the teeth a quite course you should be able to see how aggressive and how coarse those teeth are they're quite open so they're gonna remove metal easier than if we used one of these of the final burr that we're gonna use to cut the seat you'll see how fine those teeth are you can see how caused those teeth are so again we're having to remove metal remember this is two and a half millimeter at the moment we've got one and a half a millimeter hole here so that's a hole millimeter we have to take away by using this little burr here with the fine teeth it may overheat and you're gonna wear out these birds a lot quicker if it has to remove a lot of metal so in this case I'm going to go down with my ball burr not necessarily all the way through but at least halfway through the plate to remove some of the metal then we can go along then to our nice fine settle bit so we've got the ball burr you can go down I'm going down to about half way through the plate on this and now we can swap over now to our straight sided setting bur as you can see there's the hole there's the set umber so we've hardly got to remove any metal at all I would have thought we're going to be removing what's this two millimeter this is two and a half millimeter so only gonna be roofing removing half a millimeter now from this hole now how far and how deep do we have to go well when it comes to the stones themselves usually apps around about a two millimeter stone the table should be completely flush with the metal itself as the dense the stone gets bigger the diameter gets bigger the proportions of the stone increases well and if we kept that rule going so that the table of the stone has to be level with the surface of the metal there's going to be too much metal above the stone to burnish over so what I'm going to be going for is doing this by eye just picking up my stone a second on the end of my stick having a lot of these little sticks is absolutely invaluable this is a little bit of beeswax with a bit of charcoal into it a little bit of blue tack would be ideal so I got that to hand we can drop that into the hole so we're going to again put a little bit of cut lube onto the burr and now we can go down make sure you're going down straight so we can go straight down this way if you have this it's an angle make sure you go in at 90 degrees to the surface as well by doing this then you can assure your gonna get a nice bearing that's going to be level if the bearing is slightly off and you know you're drilling along like this but your boo is at an angle the table at the stone is not going to be level and we need to have it completely level so when you drill down with the burr make sure the bird is at 90 degrees to the plate itself so there's the plate we can come at 90 degrees and what's point doing it this way the table has to be level so we gotta go at 90 degrees to the surface and how far am I going to go down well with this particular boot I'm just going to go down initially half way on the straight side we're gonna see how far the stone goes in there so a bit of boo life on this run the boo so also what I'm doing is turning the silver around and I'm looking at the height of the wall that's being cut when I'm going down with the burr I say I'm just going to go down a half way you can see how the shavings that are coming off this boot are a lot lot finer than what they were before so let's see how that stone goes into the hole do you know what that stone actually fits in super super gorgeous and perfect that does actually but it doesn't sit in there far enough so we're gonna go along I'm just gonna drill that hole out boo that hole that a little bit further [Music] I'm looking at the height of the wall all the way around okay let's try that stone again okay that's done doesn't quite drop in so this is what I was saying about what it does it does let's have a look it does it does fit in there absolutely gorgeous okay so the table of the stone is a fraction fraction above the surface of the metal and that's looking nice level I use the back of the pusher if you want to you can always use the the back of your scribe just to help ease the stone into place I wouldn't use anything too hard or push it too hard because you may end up shattering the stone and you can just about see the table of the stone is a fraction above the surface with this pick your finger you can just about feel it but I've got enough metal that is just coming over the edge of that stone to hold that stone in place if there isn't enough metal coming over the edge of the the stone it's not going to be held into place so that's looking really good okay so let's get the little tool that we're going to use now to secure this stone in place and the tool that we're going to be using is a tiny tiny little pointed burnisher as you can see this has been made from an old burr that I've just simply filed down I've buffed the end I've polished it and it comes down to a nice tip that we're going to use you can't have anything big to set small stones like this I've got back in a little handled is one of my beading tool handles actually or you can fasten it into a graver handle something like that would be absolutely brilliant and what we're going to do I'm not going to come down vertical on this I'm going to come at a slight angle on this and the idea is all I'm going to be doing is just running the edge of the furniture along the edge of the metal and by doing that you're gonna be pushing the metal down onto the stone itself that way you're gonna get a nice border around the outside of the stone there's going to be nice and shiny because you're burnisher here is gorgeous and lovely and shiny so we're going to come it in an angle this way and we're just gonna run the burnisher around and the advantage with this vise is that I can turn the vise as I go and at the moment I'm just gently gently coming along and just burnishing this over and you see the angle let's put a 45 degree angle and just coming over that is gonna be pushing the metal downwards onto the stone itself gently come along at 45 degrees okay I've gone round once we can go around again and by having the burnisher at an angle as I said if you're gonna put use a nice shiny edge all the way around the stone that is going to enhance the stone as well so as you can see I've got my thumb on the base and I've got my finger on top I'm actually got the furniture in that part of my hands I've got it nicely my fingers are coming around the burnisher this way and we are GEOSS running the edge of the burnisher around that part of our whole gorgeous now you can come along with the tip and go around as well in nice continuous motion to ensure you get a nice gorgeous edge running around your stone looking absolutely fabulous and I think that is basically all there is to it the trick is getting the right size stone for the right size hole that is the trick the next trick is getting the depth just about right because I said two millimeters and up to two millimeters the table level with the surface after two millimeters and upwards you have to use your eye and just gauge how much metal needs to come over to hold that particular stone in place two and a half millimeter this you just saw the table was a fraction fraction what's that quarter of a millimeter if that above the surface you could just about feel it with your finger when you put your finger over the surface there's enough metal that's hold that in place just to prove it there's the stone be good test so that stone now is not coming out of there any questions you're more than welcome to pop them in the box down below but that is the most important thing right size stone as I've got on my desk here I got some two millimeter two point two two point two five two point three millimeters because now I've used that straight sided setting bur it may be a fraction fraction smaller now because I've just taken that initial sharpness off the teeth so it starts off at two and a half millimeter it may be down to two point four five millimeters now so you can see the you do need the right size stone for the whole if you find that that stone didn't quite go into the hole with them when you're coming down you're drilling you just do what you do with the drill if the hole isn't in the right spot you just move the boot around a little bit ease a bit of pressure evenly all the way around the outside as you drill as you drop as you burn into the hole and that will enlarge the hole a little bit but do that carefully a little bit at the time get the stone check the fit is it gonna fit using magnification these op dividers are absolutely brilliant if either that I use a microscope but to get in close to see what you can see with those it's absolutely essential when you're doing some nice tight fit in close setting like this so there we go that is how I flush set stones with a few bit of information from what I was thinking in my head about how we're setting it and the things you gotta think about as I said any questions pop them in the box down below I'd happily read them not try and answer each and every one question if there are so many questions perhaps I'll produce another film on those particular questions if it seems to be quite a popular question so don't forget if you have done so already please subscribe and don't forget smash the little bell icon on the end there to notified when films go live on the YouTube channel difficut please give this film a thumbs up if you liked it and don't forget please share it with your friends and absolutely love you too so there we go flush setting it is easy it is straightforward but it just takes practice sharp tools right side stones my name is andrew barry for at the benches youtube channel take it I'll see you next time bye bye [Music]

Channel: Andrew Berry

Views: 42,450

Rating: 4.9470658 out of 5

Keywords: jewelry making, making jewelry, sterling silver, jewelry making tutorials, andrew berry, at the bench, andrew berry jewellery, how to make jewellery, bench, soldering, annealing, soldering station, making jewellery for beginners, how to, jewelry making tools, flush setting, stone setting, how to flush set, gypsy setting, stone setting tools, stone setting techniques, stone setting jewelry

Id: PO9P1VTW7as

Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020