How to Make a Square 4 Claw Collet

how's it going guys welcome back to the diamond mounted channel I'm professional jeweler Chris builtin and today boom I'm gonna show you how to make this a four claw gate collet for square stones now my collar is slightly off square because my citrine a little bit of a cushion shape but everything in the video will apply to making a collet for a perfectly square stone princess cut or anything like that now my video will take you from the start meaning having your strip of metal ready to be turned up and then I go through all the stages of turning up the collet cutting the daylight and putting the claws on and you may have noticed it's a long video it's almost 2 hours long because I go in deep explaining everything that's going on through my mind as I'm making it every stage pointing out pitfalls and things you need to be done to end up with a nice sharp perfectly made call it mine was quite chunky quite heavy I've done that on purpose that's not the only way I can do it as you get good at jewelry you will learn different styles so when you're working for people or customers have different requests you have the ability to make things in different styles to suit their needs so [Music] the technique what doing this is you've got your metal you've got your pliers parallel pliers the wider section ones are best okay you want your metal in here not right to the edge but pretty close have the rounded section nearest you and then put that against the peg first not the other way around is like this we're gonna grip that keeping it straight using that edge as a kind of levering point and then this edge of the pliers is gonna push the metal up so just keep that sturdy and then I can use all my arm it just bends quite easy when you get good at this I mean I reckon I can literally do that so hard without it twisting my could just tear that but I know rounded section near us mean give up Bend slide up a bit give it up end slide off of it this is quite physical you're using a lot of strength but combined with control but I feel like I'm just squeezing it not really yanking on it it's quite a controlled small motion and then just understand that you're leaving off that and then holding the metal there and just keep everything straight you start twisting it it can kink so I just move up a little bit very small small amounts of curvature I'm adding every time and I'm just moving along it trying to keep a nice curve do the same amount of curve every time you adjust your pliers and I'm going to move along all right top tip a lot right I've curved up that much now that's not curved enough I'm gonna go over again but top tip is way before you get to the end start curving from that end turn it over just curve it there the idea is if that's curved it gets very difficult to lever it nicely so start going from that end a long time before you anywhere near it it will help you also I'll run the top tips section look at my curve it's not great and to highlight how not great is you put it put something slightly smaller than your curve up next to it you can see that end is straight that's kind of bumpy those sort of follows there's a big straight section there and I've curved after it I don't know why I didn't know how much so I've got a go go back to that and then curve it nice leagues I want a nice continuous circle all right keep going till you end up with a circle I'm checking around it looking for flat spots I want it to be evenly round and one trick I do you can you can put it on your ring stick you want to find something round which is slightly smaller than the circle and then that highlights your flat spots all right I'm about to anneal this again I'll just show you the stage a map not very round and a bit kinked and wobbly so whenever kneeled it take a marker pen a fine liner and just cut off just gonna cut off the ends you can see how that's completely straight and was gonna cut off and then obviously the other side and I'm gonna tighten it up where I need to to get it nice and round it's important to have a nice perfect circular curve I'm looking at the inside edge all the time because when you fold it up into a collet you want each side to have even angles if one curve is slightly more open than the other side when it's folded up it's not gonna have equally angled sides opposing sides when I get to nearly as round as I want this surprisingly works for very my new adjustments just tap it down a little bit in areas where thinking it needs to curve obviously I'm tapping it here it's gonna Bend like here okay so that's good enough just put on that end on my ring stick so you can see the rounded not perfect perfect but that's good enough right so have a look hammer it flat have a look at it you can make you're not gonna use this whole thing so choose your piece that you want to make your call out of when I study this I think that curve is not as nice as this so I want my collet to be this section when I start the end isn't going to be to the corner which you might naturally be tempted to do I'm gonna do it halfway across this is silver and making a master for casting so just do it anywhere away from the corner I'm gonna do the long side down the side first all right just to explain something clearly which is quite important when you're cutting down your line which will be the fold for your corner always go I always look at the top and go straight down you imagine the center of the circle this is why I always turn up a full circle because it helps when you're doing this you cut straight down from the outside heading towards the center that's usually the rule when doing claws on any collet and if you always follow that you always have the same angle if you start to if you did one slightly slightly off I know that it's exaggerated but when you fold it up when you folded the whole call it up it's not gonna end like that one ends gonna go up or go down and it's gonna ruin it so I think it's quite important to always get that cut nice and straight so to start it off keeping my saw blade using that line it's across the center being careful not to catch the opposite end go from the inside they go that's all I do with my saw just start it off next stage two different needle files one the Tri square the other one the square with the triangle using that edge to groove in again always keeping it straight thinking about the center to the top and just moving backwards or forwards along that line I think you should go through the metal two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through certainly not right up to the other end you want some strength in it for bending if it breaks off it kind of ruins it it is repairable but I'd rather have the fool call it folded up without one side being salted on I'll change to the square now so I get that nice 90 degree V I have a look at the ends see how far you go in not even halfway through yet it takes quite a lot of filing sometimes I put in the weight that way sometimes back I'm getting there this side I just need more this way which is a typical thing to happen because the tapering of the file you have to tilt it more than you'd expect I don't like how these needle files always taper to a point if I could snap that off there I prefer to use it obviously sometimes you need the thinner thinner diameter of the file sorry about my sniffing about cold okay we're getting there now by all means use your loop to see exactly how far you're going with it I'm quite fortunate I've got 20 years experience more than that even 23 years experience some 40 years old and my eyesight is still really good [Music] this job I think if you don't look after your eyes can ruin your sight it's important to have good lighting it's not always preferable to sit next to a window because as the clouds go by the Sun the light can change light and dark and that can cause your eyes to work more than they should constantly adjusting to the light differences okay I'm getting there now okay that's gonna do next step not essential I like to use two pairs of parallel pliers I put one if you can see that I've got my groove there put the pliers along parallel with the groove getting in the groove now saying the other side what's this I just bend it about that much reason is that's very thin silver if I keep bending it there's a chance it might crack on the back of it so I bend it halfway about halfway and then I will anneal it and then bend it the rest of the way up to 90 degrees something like a right-angle now I can test it on here needs a bit more rebend okay this is how it's going down not essential just the way I do things I actually fluxed that before I annealed it it's gonna be soldered losing parallels to keep the size flat no really have to I can hold it just on that small piece is enough and then push that down long as I'm close to the fold they'll be fine okay so now here is where it gets more difficult and we are going to be picking up and putting down our stone quite often now so regular viewers to my channel will know are very strict on this keep your bench skin swept out free of level free of tools if you drop back and it breaks it's a big trouble especially if it's a customer stone so even if you're working on something cheap like this this is an old citrine like always practice just being very careful with it and then one day when you get your hands on a 10,000 pound tanzanite or whatever like you will just automatically be very careful with it without really having to keep it on your mind too much it'll just be your normal behavior you've learned so right this is where it gets more advanced because if you were just making this collet like maybe they would teach you in a college scenario where you don't have a stone they're just teaching you to physically make this collet you'd probably decide your measurements for a square or a rectangle and you just mark your dividers any way you want and then turn it up and then if while are you've got your collet but when you work it to a stone there's so many more things to consider there's a lot of maths goes into it first of all I put that on top I'll just line it up so when that metal edge disappears that's kind of just as it disappears that's the maximum size it can be but I might want it to sit lower or higher or whatever so I need to consider where it is on there the lower the collet is on the stone the smaller it can be so I'm gonna hold the stone as precisely as I can where I want it and just put a little mark with a pen on that now I've got my little mark where I want it again remembering what I said earlier about lining that up and then you cut down through to the center that's my angle I want nothing else same as before I've marked it I scored it with the saw blade then I'm using my tri square file I will dig into it with the corner and then go to the square file and then put it right down get in a nice v-shaped hole going from the top edge to the bottom edge about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through and then fold it half anneal it and blocks it and fold up fully and then solder it move on to the next one however this top is still rounded when we folded it all up completely that's going to be filed flat so it will allow the stone to sit even lower so I won't mind thinking about how I'm gonna file that flat on the corner it's even more difficult for me looking through the looking through the screen on the phone so so that metal edge disappears bringing a stone up even more thinking about how much of that corner I'm going to file away without going all the way through I want about half half of that width off from the inner corner to the outer corner then thinking about how that edge is going to go off so it's gonna sit down lower again consider in these facts I can then decide where I'm gonna make my next fold from okay it's just about to solve this up I thought I'd show you now okay what you should have if you've got your angles right a nice even angle if there was a vertical line going down the middle you should have opposite nice angles that match each other your top it should sit like that if you're lying was wrong one will be up won't be down it's a bit of a problem if you got it wrong because if you try and straighten them you're then twisting one side which puts the whole thing out and yeah you can file it flat but then you've got one side thinner than the other and then your corners are not going to match up and it's you're just getting the mess so that's why every stage I recommend take your time and be patient to do it correctly get it flat that looks really high but once that edge gets flattened off it's gonna sit down there and if I want it which I'm happy with if I want to even lower you can always file that inner corner off and then the stone will sit down how you want it to and obviously you can do that quite severely to get the stone to drop down quite a lot so there is some adjustability if you're unsure where to market and where you want your corner to be I'd always on edge of making it what you suspect will be too small rather than too big because if it's too small you have more options to adjust it to get the stone to sit down lower okay same again put that on there I've got it sitting where I want it turn the stone upside down sometimes helps for you to gauge what's going on with it all the information you need for Heights and angles is right there in your stone so please think and understand what you're doing where it's going how is going to sit keeping things straight when you're soldering up the corners and eventually the last one we saw during all up together really worth your while using hard solder I unfortunately don't have any so I'm using medium for everything it helps you out a lot later when you're putting claws on you have to worry so much about solder melting anyway alright cut mine turned it up it's time to check it stone it's kind of okay I'm looking at that top edge there and rocking it back some forwards and seeing how it is parallel with the opposite side so I put my stone on things to consider it may not sit down nicely because this edge is still very high these opposite sides in the center are the highest part so ideally it should sort of rock on those without touching at the ends and the idea is once that's flattened the stone will drop down and then should sit comfortably on all four sides okay so here's a trick I learned in my previous video I've blue tact a watchmakers eyeglass to the front of my phone so we've got times two magnification here all right hopefully I can explain those distances [Applause] or it's difficult right so it's touching there and on the opposite side so ideally it just sits there and there should be a tiny gap at either end actually if I can show you that can see that see it's got space to move backwards and forwards technically once this edge is flattened when I've got it all finished the stone will drop down and then it should touch and sit nicely against all four walls so it's your final corner now this one is very very important you get this in the correct position it's obviously if it's too short it's gonna not be straight parallel with that end so really take your time I I don't do this myself I catch everything by eye but it might be an idea to actually use your dividers or take a measurement and actually score a line first it will help you be confident before you cut really take your time and check your measurements all the time I just marked my collet and I was about to cut it I thought I'd show you the stage looking at it what I do one thing is I'm trying to replicate that corner to that corner don't worry about the inside measurement so I've marked it and something I'm really thought about in the past you can see my mark just there use your saw frame which is a perfect straight line go from corner to corner and it should the outer edge should line up in a straight line to where you're going to cut and then lost my pen and then with a fineliner marker pen if you don't have a permanent marker pen with a fine tip get one there's literally one of the most important tools on the bench they use it all the time when I'm marking things out right I can't do this to come through the screen yeah basically that's the corner that top end and when it's filed out when it's filed out you've got this little v-shape so when you're filing down my cuts gonna be in the middle of there when I'm filing down I'll keep checking it and keep double-checking my measurements and if I feel it needs to come in a bit more you can pull the file in a little bit there is a little bit of adjustment available to you it may not fold up in a very nice neat line but at least you can fold it at a perfect right angle and then fill that with solder hopefully you like that - too far out but the end of the world if you are adjusting it as you're fighting down you can pull it in a little bit well pull it out but ideally you really want that edge to line up flat with that so you get the perfect square or rectangle or whatever you're using starting with the upward stroke you go checking my saw blade down to the center get my angles right I saw as much as I can without hitting the other side not that matters too much because that's all can be used just rock it back to the forwards to tilting the saw blade I just want to score a line going down that side the bottom up that will do you need to try square again square this stay on course don't start twisting your file only hold it move it backwards and forwards in line with where you want it to go you can't hold it that way you can expect your line to go straight remember to sort of take a second look back at the whole thing do you like where it's going are you wandering off your line a little bit but I am actually I'm gonna pull it in a little bit but we're talking very my new adjustments I'm like I'm thinking in my 10th 20th 20th of a millimeter some people you work for when they if they're jewelers themselves or used to be old-school guys might be very funny about you blowing level off they're off your piece because it could be wasting all your level gold dust I think gently blowing dust away from your line it's always gonna go down there but the amount of people that know about this kind of side of making jewelry getting fewer and fewer it's all made in China or done with cats things being made in China used to be a bit of a joke like very cheap toy cars and things were made in China and now they are masters of manufacturing like some of the cat stuff it's just so perfect it's to mathematica perfect when you see a finished piece of jewelry and everything's just set absolutely machine it's got no kind of soul I think there's a sort of spirit missing that you get when something handmade all right I'm about halfway through now I'm gonna start squaring off okay so I've just stopped done my first Bend I'm gonna flux it in anneal it now and then fold it right up I'll show you how I get the ends to join up okay so I'll just bent it a little bit more all right so I am looking along that line I want that corner to be straight which will be fine that should land this side is all right this side by the way don't do this way if you're working in gold is such a waste it's only because silver is like a practice male you can do this I may as well I just cut out off I don't know what I didn't a bit concerned about my clothes enough there was a chance to run have you sold it it up but it's not quite straight this metal is thicker than you need so there's a bit of a justments possible where you can file the outside you want to keep all the walls all four walls the same thickness all the way around just for neatness and yeah you can adjust the inside and the outside there's a little bit of flexibility but like I said before it's like tenths of a mil you really want to aim making it correctly and perfectly if you can I'm just thinking about the next step mistake I made I did not cut this down through carefully enough it's not quite straight so that pulls me up a little bit so I'm gonna try and get my saw blade in the middle cut it directly in the middle a good angle and then join the other side up from there the reason I think it's good to go in the middle if this was gold and you weren't thinking of having it cast having a joint down the center is where the shank will join up to it and then when you're polishing it afterwards you have to worry about any solder lines showing up down your collar because that's a shame if it happens because oddly you've done the collar stone is set the shanks on there everything and then when you're polishing it which is the very final stage you get a little line showing up a little solder going so yeah that would be a big shame if that happens yeah I'm gonna cut this through and then push that down have it slightly too big so it's really squeezing in there and then I'm gonna put a thin saw blade through it so the ends are nice and flat together and then solder it up ideally you'd use hard solder for this like I said I think I mentioned earlier I don't have any hard solder so I'm using medium all the way through this job all right now I'm not just gonna line that up and cut it like that I'm gonna go on the safe side and after me to pull that out a little bit but I'm not going straight to that line I want it a bit longer than I need just for safety and I almost slowly reduce the measurement until it fits in nicely see assaulted upper corners it was a good idea it gives me strength when I'm handling it I will sit that through it's just just too big I might force it in there and then it's gonna push it out a little bit I put a saw blade through there so it's a nice straight join and then it should fold up nicely and be a good shape and ready for soldering up come on what's happening is I'm squeezing it as I'm cutting it so it's gripping the saw blade but it's essential we keep going because there's a burr that lasts all edges got to come out cut through it okay so with a that's a gap now with a squeeze which I'll be holding it together like that when I'm soldering it it shouldn't measure up quite good looks not too bad see what you've got adjusted with pliers so it sits nicely and then check it with your measuring gauge I'm just going to close that up and then I'll show you my measurements time to solder it let's go my top tips for soldering if you've got binding wire take it outside and throw it across the street you never need binding wire it just makes a mess of your acid pot and it ruins your ability to solder neatly so what I do is I've got a large prayer tweezers and what I'm soldiering I hold in those tweezers and I've think about how I'm gonna hold it so my entire join is flat not just pushing one end or the other so that's in there nicely nice and secure so when the metal expands when it gets hot which all metal does it literally cannot open up because I've got the pressure on it with tweezers doing this technique is especially important when working on platinum because platinum as anyone who's done it before should know when you've soldered it up and you filed it and buffed it and it looks nice and neat you take it to polish it the solder joint can show up because just the metal expands a hundredth of a mil when you're polishing it platinum solder tends to polish out quite badly so it's really important to have things closed up when you or soldering it helps you on later on when you're polishing things and also it will just give you a nice strong join yes I'm using a plumber's blowtorch so you've got you'll call it you're happy with it you finished it it's all nice and square your measurements and your angles are all good next stage we're moving on to filing so here I've got a bastard file which is very coarse course files will file more quickly and you can finish your piece quicker in a shorter time so I'm just flattening the top now so do it carefully go straight down you want it to be flat not funny angles just think about the sides and how they looked at the top so basically flat secure it against your peg it's 5 is course boats getting blunt silver conducts heat very quickly so it will get hot while you're working on it just something you deal with [Music] making jewelry you're constantly holding sharp hot bits of metal so it's going to ruin your fingertips but with a bit of experience they will harden up and become heat resistant which is useful when you're moving hot plates around on the dinner table [Music] right so I'm gonna flatten it a bit more but just to double-check what I'm doing staying straight again I think about the middle line and then make sure each corner angle is even if I start to file it tilting it down one way is gonna very clearly look wrong so this just needs a touch more and then we will do the sides right follow that down a bit more have a look at yours is it nice and flat you can put it on your metal block if you want and turn it round and see how you think it looks next on the sides again secure it against your peg filing it evenly across the surface top to bottom you're not looking to change any angles just flatten what's already there right these are a good tool to use forget about that what the measurement is but just you've got these two adjustable parallel lines so you can put your collar in there and just have a look check your accuracy you can even have it just off the edge and look down I can see mine is looking slightly twisted so I'm going to take some off there and there and it should straighten up a little bit okay I'm happy with my opposite sides now now this one secure it against your peg now I'm looking to create a perfect right angle from that corner and that corner so I'm just going to file it with my file flat against the entire side just to get the whole thing completely flat because it'll be ever so slightly rippled it may have hammer marks in it where you've been tapping it flat while you were turning it up will just get rid of all that and making sure we've got a flat surface don't worry about the corners ended up too sharp they're gonna be filed down anyway okay more important most important thing is getting these right angles right don't worry about that inner edge too much we've got enough thickness to play we're doing pretty good this is three good perfect pretty good there you go three sides done okay so all four sides done quite happy with that time to start filling with your stone so take your brush sweep out all that level out your skin on off your bench bag get it off your fingers look after that stone yes back with the eyeglass I love this trick good job okay alright next working with the stone so sitting up a bit high I got my proportions quite good I can just see the corners peeping out over the stone next thing I want our stone to sit down how it's gonna sit when it's set so I'm looking at the gaps stones got a bit of a belly on it stick in there use your 10-times loupe have a close look at it all the way around see where the stone is touching and where there's gaps takeaway metal from the inside where the stone touches so there's more of a stone sitting against the bezel and a stone will be more comfortable it will be set more securely you'll be safer less likely to break or shift if it gets knocked it would be a much more quality piece of jewelry if this is your first time watching a video of a piece of jewelry being made like this you can appreciate now why at the start I said you must work to a stone like 80% of the information I'm giving you is about the stone it's very different than just making that shape a little box with claws on all the skill or the difficulty is in making it exactly for off stone even making a wedding ring it's different making one for yourself to one that someone asks you to make and it has to finish like 2.2 mil wide and 1 point 7 mil is an extra level of skill to actually finish up with that okay so my stone basically just touching in the middle yours may be different some sapphires and at sapphires are especially bad beautiful stones but when you look underneath them the belly can be completely one-sided and be very flat one side and very steep the other side so all of these things have got to be accounted for when you're making your mount to take metal away you can freeze it it's very quick you can needle file it even thread your saw frame through and then zip away it's just really that top edge where the stone is gonna sit I think I'm gonna freeze mine I'm using a ball phrase okay taking a bit off both sides put the stone in again make sure it's flat have a look what's going on okay space is in the correct place it's now touching that end on that end so when I take the metal away of these it should sit down [Music] [Applause] don't worry about how it looks on the inside it can be polished out later but for now just get the stone fitting right okay that's touching and to praise our a little bit more on the side of where I cut it but first yeah same that one every stone is different so you can't just you can't just assume you're gonna get it in there right just making my new adjustments also because stones are not always cut symmetrical it is worth putting a little dot with a marker pen on one side and you'll call it and then you're always putting the stone in the same way actually lead by example and do that okay I sitting down much nicer now touching as it gets lower you might find another part of the stone another facet touches which is what happening to me I'm having to take the metal away from the middle down the sides here and there taking a top edge away okay touching right down here now don't put tools in your skin okay now that feels much more solid it's not rocking about like it was if you think about that when that's set when there's claws on the side and they're squeezing the stone and pushing it down the stone is well supported all the way around which means it's less likely to break it's less likely to come loose or start to rattle or twist it's a higher quality piece of jewelry this is that handmade attention to detail which separates your jewelry to cheap handmade things I might go down a little bit lower another explanation I would like to say earlier on I mentioned marking one side of your stone on one side of the collet so when you're putting it down and picking it back back up you can always be confident you're putting it in the same position if I turn this around doesn't really sit in there nicely it's got a bit of a wobble rotate it half it doesn't wobble it's got nice nice solid solid footprint in there next I'm taking my paper disc paper discs in the sides you haven't got that I would recommend getting one but basically I'm doing this you're gonna buff lines opposite to what you're about to use your dividers for to run a line parallel with the top and bottom reason is when your buff lines go that way any marks go in this way show up very easily so it takes just the lightest mark to put lines on it which is useful without you don't want to you want to mark your piece without actually damaging it scoring a deep line I use paper disks a lot they're useful they've got a lot of applications making jewelry I'll be using this one a lot as we progress through the collet so I recommend you get some it's not a difficult thing to buy you buy them in packs like a long box with a hundred in or something and they're not expensive and they're very useful so I didn't go over the top I don't have to do too much basically just getting my final marks out and I'll just do this with a buff stick just to get some lines going vertically at this stage before we cut the sides I should have done this before I start buffing the sides doesn't matter but we're going to take the bottom up and what I do is I put it on flat how it fits nicely then I'm looking at that gap I'm looking where the stone is and then figuring out turning it like that and I can figure out how close the Q lay of the stone is to the bottom of the bezel and I want to take it up not too close because we're going to be filing the finger-sized out of there so you need a bit of distance also as a casting it's nice to have quite chunky under bezel because in the future you'll be using different stones and they all come in different depths they're all cut differently especially big colored stones so it's nice to have a bit of spare to play with you can always take metal away you can't put it back on so I'm gonna have a closer look with this stone and then bring it out from the bottom obviously you're adjusting any any adjustments after this stage if you want to bring up more always do it from the bottom because remember the top is made specifically to sit the stone how you want it when you're at stage where you're picking up the stone all the time and checking it in your mouth make sure you keep your skin clean there's no tools there nothing I can drop that it just lands on a clean bit of level very very unlikely to damage if it landed on on that may be a different story there's zero tolerance for damaging stones owl have to be very careful with them okay so this is still way too deep so I'm gonna take a little bit more off and then continue okay I'm leaving my collet really deep sorry it's not focusing this is really deep I've got like probably two mill up from the bottom before I hit the cue lay of the stone reason I'm leaving it so deep is for it's gonna be cast so I've got that depth for future castings to play with if I need it if I have a really funny shaped cut stone also one thing I'm considering this is quite wide so when I file that finger size in it because it's gonna sit on the finger this way so the narrow end it's gonna have that shape filed into it and because it's wide is gonna go up quite a long way so I'm just playing it safe by leaving it really clearly too deep and then I can confidently continue parallel gap that goes between the top and bottom usually around the middle the design is up to you a little bit like this maybe halfway and then below just below halfway other day you need to consider you know this this narrower end is gonna have that filed in because it goes as your shank here the ring goes that way around so your finger goes in that way so this is gonna be filed up and like I mentioned because this is so wide to get it nice and neat from corner to corner it's gonna have to come up quite a long way that's why I'm playing it safe with this one and having it and keeping it nice and deep until the last moment so you're welcome to draw lines on it I just use a fine line a marker pen just where I think would look good it's too too metallic too thick it looks cumbersome this one might benefit from having quite a quite wide gap down the center something like that dividers i've decided that's my top line just go all the way around it just adjusting them so see how I like the gap yeah I think I'm gonna have quite a big gap on this one and up give you a top tip use your pendant loop on the side because that's kind of a finger-sized you could put that on there you can see you can see how much you need to come up so it gives you an idea where you want to go with it yeah put my line there and then gonna bring the bottom up a little bit more mark it out all the way around make sure it's parallel I don't think we're born filing in a straight using the other edge to go around it well our power okay that'll do and then once that bond is a little bit shook all right I'm just putting a fresh saw blade in a thinner one I think this is this was a three 303 zero or three or I think they call him in Coventry make sure it's tight and I've got a thicker one I'd I explain I don't understand the the numbers on saw blades I think this one's a three and this one's a three Oh which I think I prefer to have a used one for a long time I think two is my favorite I love ageism right so I'm start from the corner and I stop in this corner on on my line just slightly to the inside of it making sure my sore doesn't slip down this is kind of a this is intermediate to advanced level jewelry videos I'm assuming you can use a saw well though even beginners will be welcome to try this it's good to start early take your time with this because if you build it up you've done all this work and you kind of ruined it I know you could Nick it accidentally and then you can like solder bits up and file out marks but you kind of going backwards and forwards you just want to do the correct thing without any mistakes I saw down the corner and keep my files saw straight if anything I taught it slightly into the hole so it's not gonna twist and start to go down a little bit many things almost beneficial to go into the hole a little bit vary my new amount all I do is I'm cutting making sure this sides going straight down they're kind of tilting the saw blade so it goes up this line a little bit and do the same down this way I'm gonna do is go down to around about halfway all the way around and then move up and then work on the inside of the other line okay to show you a close-up but might call it you see more two lines I've got my saw cut and popped that line straight across there and then down there up to the line so just got enough space I may just go through it with a thicker blade to try and pull it up into the cup towards the other line and then I'm just gonna open up the usual way with my paper disc but I'll show you every stage start to break through now I decided to keep the thinner blade in and then just widening it widen it it is one of these awkward kind of distances it was too difficult to do it neatly with the white blade and then the thinner one kind of slips into the hole I'm just almost like skimming it wider breaking through now when you're doing this you can feel it gives a bit more teeth II like not slipping is really grinding through it the teeth are really getting a grip when it goes I'm gonna go to a hole you can hear it up in the matter careful pushing your finger into it because your blade is just there remember okay and put the thicker blade in now I mentioned this in a previous video by their show you again put a new paper disc in get some rough sandpaper on a flat surface this is a bus stick I use this is very cheap just cheap coarse sandpaper I think the yellow stuff is what builders use a lot in the UK and they see it's like a intermediate bus stick between filing and buffing I just get the worst file marks out of metal with this one and then I'll use the usual plastics anyway used doesn't matter have you don't have to have a Bostick turned up but just any sandpaper and then with your paper disk you want the grip inside and we're just singing it up and down and we're putting a edge on there so we get like a little blade that's nice a sharp and now that's a good tool you to use in there this cuts very slowly so it's a nice gentle tool to use to flatten it out but you can still make a mistake if you're not careful I'm cutting here but I'm also thinking about the other end I don't want to be pushing down like this or making mistakes where I'm not looking you can go from the corner diagonally into it you can see quite a lot what's going on hold it straight don't start bending it this is my second gate Colette video I decided to do another one because that first one with amethyst have these double V floors which might be a bit difficult to use to make or just not what you want to see so this one's more simple I'm just gonna have a straight round crawl I think maybe a square claw I think about it but hopefully you can see that on the screen that's sharpening off the edges quite nicely there needs a lot more work but it's the best way to get a nice a nice straight line okay so you've got my black mark on the stone I put on the marker pen and marker pen the inside of this collet softly and work on the outside so I confidently know this is how my stone it's it well before I think it sits up really high I'm gonna I'm gonna cut out this edge get it right down but you can see the stone through my daylight hole there that tilting it out at the bottom of the stone there is there I've got all that distance this loans our space to bring this right up usually more than you imagine like Cedar Point the Q lay the stone there easy though so the stone is sitting like halfway down this collet so there's plenty of metal around here to take away to get it to sit right down and then I still got plenty of space on the bottom bezel as well to take up so the next step I've just got the corners of the claws peeping out I'm gonna file a flat on these so they disappeared when the stone is straight I'll make sure it's sitting straight in the collet I'll get the height right I'll do that next take a little bit off may cause nothing on your fingers when you're handling your stone I want to lower this first so just gonna make sure it's straight having look around it with the loop seeing where it's touching and then taking that metal away so the whole thing sits down and it's good to have it I mean if you can get it to touch all the way around that's great because the stone is very secure then it's not gonna rock around which means the claws will hold it nice and securely it's just like to break if it gets knocked it's best not to come loose just think just imagine what the stone feels you want it to feel comfortable and secure in its mount so I'm gonna just get any old bull phrase do no one's around hilarious little little drills in here any old British should have been this stuff you can use beeswax I bought this in a shop in Osaka it's quite good it's good for everything like burning your phrases and stuff well the saw blades but it's not good for pulling that wire beeswax is still the best for ah [Music] [Applause] it doesn't matter too much what it looks like on the inside so I'm not trying to make it look all smooth and fancy okay touching okay it's good other side stand on that in a corner and then just coming down a little bit this is where your dot comes in useful I don't have to pay attention at all to the way I put it down I just confidently know the stone is the right way around the stones are rarely cut perfectly symmetrically and done by hand a lot of the time so all these facets different opposite sides that's why it's helpful to have the stone in the same way every time [Music] I've been taking away that I just went up and did most of it I did all of it with a ball phrase and I was went over in the file afterwards just so there wasn't any law wasn't so lumpy but yeah remember doesn't really matter too much what that inner edge looks like just the stone is comfortable was the most important thing I'm tempted to get a stone even lower it's still up quite a lot but there's an element of I don't want that top wall to be too thin because it's going to be cast and after casting you have to buff the sides and polish so the outer surface comes in as well which will make that even thinner all my stone down that's a flat on the corner it's a little bit sticking out it's good to do this just so you've got it in your head exactly how much you should take off yeah if I just put a crawl on that corner it will be way out from the stone which means if it was physically on there for that stone to be set it would have to bend from that point and then go over the stone and they look a mess you and your claws to be straight so when it's set just that tip like the pleura straight but the tip of the stone is cut into it and then it's just balled up on top and that's a nice claw it's not bent forward or sometimes people doing to Underwood's and bent right back so it's important your angles where you file it ideally you made your call it nicely a nice angle you just continue that angle and just go in so you've got a nice flat section on the or corner of your collar and then your claw will just sit nicely in there so what I'm gonna do remembering that this will be cast and it will shrink between three and five percent and they reckon I'm just gonna get a cloth to be straight and just touch that stone this was in gold or anything other than being cast I would have it so the stone literally won't sit down anymore into into the bezel it will literally sit on the claws light up a bit high and then when the stuff claws are cut it will click down there and it'll have a little seat in the claw or the perfect position so now I'm gonna file that corner back so it's just touching the claw just touching the stone as the stone is sitting in its position right corners getting it flat against that I'm happy with this angle so I'm not trying to tilt it one way or the other I'm just gonna keep it in care for its silver so it's soft so it's possible I could squeeze that together and ruin that line we don't want you know want it coming out of shape at all this file is junk the blades are coming loose and I put like a poly filler like just filler for holes in walls and it's worked a tree so I recommend that if you've got wobbly blade in your handle just the loads of filler in there well it was this handles very old and it had different blades in it so the wood was all just pushed out inside so nothing would go tight in there all right anyway taking that corner off checking out on my angles here to come in a lot more just checking it with the stone all the time but someone with jewelry making experience could see other tool is working and know who's the one with experience and is working to a higher level towards a better quality piece of jewelry and you can tell just by the way they're always picking up the stone always checking the stone is the guide all the information you need about angles and measurements is all just in stone that's why I'm very rarely actually measuring anything as I'm making it's all just done by putting the stone on and seeing how much metal I need to take away and what angles I need to change it's just there in the stone I want to explain some things that are going on in my mind while I look at this looking at that I've got this flat on here yet that's quite parallel top to bottom it's not going this way or that way or going across it's just top to the bottom nice and straight towards me I pay attention to this edge and the edge behind it I realize that one up until it's just there as they line up and as is line up you can rotate it that way that way that way and you can see exactly what's going on with your corner so front to back I know it's dead straight you can see my file line parallel with outer edge so my claw will sit like that and then look neat if I do the same the other one I know my angles are going to match each other same that way I want this angle I want to keep that angle parallel to the walls of the side of the collet now I'm going on this way my stone in looking at the corner of my claw might come closer for this again I want to file it parallel to that so I've got my call it nice and square turn it out you can see my file the way a file it is slightly out that way from the stone so I've got a take little edge off so then I know it's confident my claw we'll just sit very nicely no no coming out won't be naturally pushed out this way or this way too much you'll just sit as perfect as possible so all these little things are going on in my mind while I'm holding it and figuring out how to progress with it the most accurate way next file that in a little bit quite a few of my angles it's it's just off the corner of the stone can you see that and just off that stone and the reason why I'm stopping there is I'm going to be taking a cylinder phrase cutting into it where I'll be putting my claw so my claw say this is my around wire I'm gonna be using it's gonna sit not on that flat surface it's gonna go into the collet so it's moving in and then it'll be just be parallel with that wall but going be parallel with the wall but then just going in slightly and then that will take it right up to the stone there's a brand new battery in here as well I was given this in 1998 and it's been great that's alright no it's off again packed up in 2019 got any complain can I write so I'm not using that there's nothing that can hold me back making jewelry us 1.8 mill my little flat I decided to put I mentioned earlier I was gonna put round claws on there but yeah I'm good for flats so gonna take that in a little bit more and then put a flat core on taking that corner in a little bit more so the claw can go on there straight it'll be touching the corner of the stone so in this video is now mini how-to video in this how-to video basically I need some I need to pull down some square wire and then I'm gonna run it with the Mills and flatten it so I'm gonna show you I don't have a draw or play square draw play so I'm gonna show you how to make perfect square section wire without using a square draw plate so rolling mills yeah get it I mean you put it through these those kind of square anyway I do is I don't go narrower than my corner keep it a bit more so we're gonna reduce the side so the corners will be very sharp and it'll be a little bit narrower all the way around they should match or you can get away with a little bit narrower than the flat on your corner take your paranoia pliers actually use mine if you've got the more narrow ones they're probably a bit better to do put it in go through you see this go through the hole hold it that much sticking out open these that goes through just tighten it a little bit now I'll do is I'm not pushing hard against the the roller wheel so I don't want to damage it with my pliers but I'm squeezing quite hard from the sides just keeping that metal nice and straight so it's going straight it through not put a nice flat on that and then I'll neat anneal that and then basically hold it the other way keeping these the same distance and then doing it you can see which side you just milled cuz it will be slightly shinier so you're doing the other one these are very minimal adjustments it still looks square even though I have flattened out one way usually feels a bit tighter the second one because it's slightly more rectangular so I haven't gone straight to very sharp corner just a very tiny amount so I kneel that and I do it again so this is annealed again tighten up a little bit more you see this just ooh just a tiny amount just feels tight as I go through that I'm certainly not really crushing it put it straight out as well don't grab it your fingers and Internet as you're wheeling it around the last little section also something you may or may not know about wire I see people with not too much experience but even people with years experience actually I know one guy they've really yank the metal through it's all kinking up and coiling and there's like bit scraping off there when the metal starts to bend and curl up it means it's getting very hard and you'll put under a lot of stress just keep it anil just anneal it all the time to squeeze it down a temper mill and anneal it again it's much better for the metal soon as soon as it starts cracking and then you've got a find yield it all splits on the corners and try and melt them down and then milling it again to try and get rid of them you got to be more careful with your metal so I can mill that once more I think and it will start to curl up which means it's time to anneal time now just tightened it up just a little twist turn around do the other side yes getting that maybe once more I'm gonna do once more to get it really sharp and then I'm gonna flatten it to something a bit closer to what my core needs to be because my core will not be square section it's gonna be flattened up my metal now that's nice and square just one thing when you're rolling it through the mills keep your angles good like sieve a flap or vertical just keep them straight you start tilting it you can have a twisted piece of metal also you're in danger of it rather being square you end up with a kind of parallelogram which is really bulls dub because it's very hard to get rid of that okay so my square section metals is obviously very very heavy bit of metal for a claw I can probably square it down a little bit more but I'm just gonna flatten that so it's usable as a claw and then I'm gonna taper it a little bit towards the end just as a bit of a design you'll think about distances and lengths of wire fur claws so I just chopped off there [Music] this is really heavy weight that's why I want sweep skin out your fingers I can double-check in just touching the claw mark that for a kite so this is how I put my claws on I hold them with tweezers I've got like a little band just any old scrap bit a metal you turn up and you can slide over your tweezers and it squeezes them closed so that holds my claw in position so this is what I'm doing and the way are angled it you can see I'm tilting it backwards and forwards towards the camera and away keep doing that I don't get it exactly flat and then rotate it until your claws in the middle and then you want your claw directly vertical when it's in the center and then if you follow that method on all four corners your claws should be at the same angle going straight up and I'm looking for a nice kind of V there matching the other side and then looking from that side that angles got match that angle they've gotta be straight this way and straight this way all matching each other so you need a method you can't just off put one on and see how it looks and then do the next one and see how it looks actually line them up before you solder them and that way you're working every step correctly and towards a goal not just trying it seeing how it turns out because then if you work that way you have to keep adjusting things or pulling claws off and filing again just get every stage correct before moving on it's one other thing to mention when you're soldering your claw and got it in the right position make sure you go over the bottom edge but that's gonna be filed flat that's gonna be filed flat so make sure there's enough metal sticking over the edge for it to line up nicely so it's all to your claw Ron just start finding where the corner now keep checking it keep looking at that side looking at that side make sure you're not tilting off or going that way keeping it straight it's time to start handling it with a bit more care because this is all silver it's all very soft and can bend easily [Laughter] position is good taught me to come in a bit more I'm looking at obviously you've got these angles and this angle has not only got to be right for the stone it's gotta match perfectly the other side so that's got to look the same when it's that way if that's got to look the same the way to achieve that is let me see if I can do that through looking through the phone so I'll hold that in position again it's flat I've get it that way in my eye and then I rotate it and you see this claw and then this one should be parallel and it should disappear I need to adjust it more but basically it should disappear like that exactly the moment it's directly facing toward you this is the trouble when you don't have hard solder especially working in silver because the whole thing has to get hot silver conducts heat quite severely so the whole thing gets hot before the solder joint the solder will run so yeah my line started to come up so I'm just flooded two bits of solder in there I finished it basically I'm putting the second klore on now just to show you what's going on with it in the center straight up I've got it go into the corner so yes your tweezers do get in the way a little bit when you're using this technique choking the other side it's much harder doing this through the camera but see this edge and the one behind it pay attention to those you want sort of rock it backwards or forwards just as it disappears so you know it's flat direct me towards a camera lens in this case so that's flattening just double-check maths flat as you rotate it and this edge of the claw should this claw behind should vanish behind this one exactly parallel right up to the last moment and you can see my doesn't see it sticking out more on the top top you can still see this edge rather than the bottom so that tells me that claw needs to come in a little bit at the top which I will adjust by filing bezel so I've got my second floor now just sold at the bottom I'm just having a general look around see if I initially like it and I don't like it using your saw frame put that directly in the middle vertically got space to do it I think this claw is leaning in more than that one house has only two I don't actually have a choice which one of it yeah that one's leaving in okay I'm pulling this core off and moving it I mean the calls are square so I might leave it until I've done the other two and see I think cuz there is a chance I can file it cuz I'm gonna be filing these down and they just file it to match it's kind of so close I'm just gonna leave it now until they've done the other two claws and then see what I think yeah this is this is making jewelry just constantly checking constantly criticizing your work as you go along right so next step what's gonna refresh those lines with my providers and then do like what we did on on the other side start cutting through those corners but of course before you start doing this make sure you've got good solder joints top and bottom of your bezels because once you've cut that all the way through the only thing holding that top and bottom together are these two claws so make sure the soldering is very good now I've decided it bothers me too much I'm gonna I'm gonna move this claw so I'm gonna do is gonna show you how I would do that before I pull it off I may be able to just shift it across by having it set up like this and then getting it under the heat and when they're solder soft enough time may be able to just touch the top of the claw and get it to move over just right it doesn't always work but it's worth trying I think it's so quick to do so yeah I've got my slit in the bench peg got my tweezers in there they're just in there enough they literally hold themselves in and as you push them down the tighter it holds this in place so it's not it's not a hugely tight but it's enough enough tension there for me to be able to get heat on it and then move that across obviously if you're doing this just be wary of what you're squeezing together so you don't want to get so hot and then start just crossing things out of shape that's quite a that's obviously a solid so if you ever find yourself in a situation where you're gonna try this like have everything clear and set up ready to go and kind of have a mock practice session while there's no heat on it so I've got with tweezers ready which I'll use to just knock it across make sure I can comfortably hit that and it's not gonna just pick out the tweezers who will fall down give it a bit flux it's only soldered on this bottom one so that's why technically it should be able to just soften that solder and then not get across did you see that move I moved way too much that's gone touch too far see if I can get it to go back that moved yeah I think I may have got it I'm not sure it cools down have a closer look well that's in the acid I made this today a little hollowed out skull head it's gonna be a pendant I um problem was that cool now I actually quite like it I think that's correct but I was trying to match it up with this one which I don't like anymore I think that's leaning well I think that's needing in towards the end so that one that way no yes welcome to making jewelry it's like this doesn't always go from start to finish perfectly so what I aim to do but sometimes you have a day where you just can't get it right first time that important to have the the patience to just angry or think too much about it or beat yourself up you just you just get on with it and just keep working towards getting it right so what I'm doing next is I'm gonna redefine my lines of the dividers so I can see clearly where I'm cutting I'm kidding this way lost on the way so now I can see where to cut exactly the same as last time start from the corner take my time concentrate on doing it straight and neat earlier in the video I mentioned about cutting this down to about halfway even further than halfway is preferable and the reason for that is at this stage when you're cutting through that last bit there's a chance your soul saw blade can just jump through and you end up nicking that inner edge of the claw so obviously go very careful but the more the further you've cut down here the less likely you are to actually accidentally go through and then hit that with your saw frame so you're soaring here and then I go teeth so something to be careful of and you can help yourself out by cutting further down towards this end okay I'm gonna get you I'm gonna get you trained up to be a high level jeweler use your loop as much as you can check your work check your soul to joins your angles things that you cut straight are they actually straight under a ten times magnification so my ones pretty good but just there it's a bit of a bump so I'm gonna disc it off a little bit more so now I've got my collet ready for the next Clause so this is why I mentioned earlier about having strong decent solder joins there and there because these top and bottom bezels are only held in position by the solder and you've done on the claws there so even though it's strong and these claws are big I'm still gonna treat this very carefully because it is silver and it can bend easily so obviously bear that in mind if you're working on yours when you're fighting the corners flat just always be very careful with it so I've filed my corner flat just positioning the claw now so when you're doing yours having a general look over it I use my saw frame all the time in this stage just helps you guide does the angle that that one match that one I think my needs to turn out a little bit there rotate it around is it the same as the one opposite ones leaning out a little bit too much just look around it even find find new ways I'll put my saw blade on the edges of the corners is it parallel it's the bottom bezel does everything you could think of it's going straight across cuz it oh my god the focus on this camera does it line up with the opposite one just go over it and take your time and make it as perfect as possible so I think I'm ready to sort of this claw on now going over it when you're looking at yours check your angle or so your lines nice and straight I'm looking at the core on the opposite side do I like the matching angles and the other one is straight down the middle now we look from that side turn it over like that yeah looks like it matches check in get in it straight and then rotating it does it disappear parallel yes it does and look over it and underneath so just generally look like it suits the collet with other claws I'm happy with this it's good to go it's much better to take your time adjusting it with your fingers and the tweezers at this stage rather than soldiering on heating it and then having to call that core off and adjust it again because every time you solder it there's a risk you're gonna fluff the solder on another floor or something's gonna move when you're pulling the core off under heat you might bend it and end up having to make another one it's just a waste of time so always have it do it with a thought in mind that soldering it will be permanent and it will not need to be changed third floor is on to the old block test does it sit flat nice no rattles close nice and flat along there so far so good now for the last one same techniques apply how's yours looking mine is okay and I can usually do a better job but it does kind of line up okay look at the sides those at the same time just general box heinous of it it's okay I'm gonna file up the clause anyway so is that further gives me opportunities to make it even more perfect I could say I'm working with my digital calipers which measure to a hundredth of a mil so you may as well try and be as accurate as that but you're stowing in your mouth out of the corners line up with your claws general look over so if you handed me your collet what I would do is I'd be looking are they straight down the middle just have a general look here to the to the angles match up on the opposite sides I'm checking a straightness of that the parallel of the top and bottom bezels looking at the gap is the gap the same all the way around have you left enough core sticking on the bottom because that's going to be filed flat if you've left a caught up you've kind of ruined it you can have to take that claw off and Laura are the claws too long too short these are too long the distance is to use your if you pick up your loop and put it on the side you get a good idea of once it's filed up and the finger shape is in there you got the shank on one's gonna be fired up to there so I've got plenty of space and then when the stone is set is that gonna is the bond the stone gonna be sticking out so it was a lot of things need to keep in mind while you're making your college next stage filing it all up everything nice and flat you know to push hard just the weight of your fingers just go over every surface everything nice to square my claws are actually gonna taper them down to water bottom my advice is if you're if you've made a collet for casting leave just the tiniest bit of length on the bottom there and then say if it's a pendant and you're finding it flat any kind of roundness from the casting can be taken off and you can get it back nice and sharp again having soaked that pendant obviously working to the distances you've got with your stone sticking out the bottom pendants tend to look nice taken right up so they can go right up to the stone so yeah go round it file keep it straight use your paper disk we need to you can get file in your daylight hole if you want to open it up or you've got you can see little lumps or bits you can improve you shouldn't have but it's possible you may find something now you know like I had a problem with my solder joint so I've got clean that up on the inside edge and yeah take your time and do it neatly go around mine now gotta need a file I'd ground off the teeth on this side and snap to the end off I like these flat section ones I find them very useful it's always quite surprising how much you have to file the sides to get them flat they're not perfectly flat because you've been handling them with your pliers so you've got little ripples and bumps on them don't really see it when you start finding it flat you realize that how much work you gotta do yeah good thing with that ground edge and go right up to the corner without worrying about cutting into it with the teeth so yeah just working around it doing that all the sides find that I put a needle file in the daylight I'll show you what I used this was a safety back file and I ground off the top at the end so it's extra thin so that gets in very small gaps just went around it evened out so I shall continue taking the claws down a little bit I'm gonna go round it with a buff stick I'm gonna wrap paper around a emery paper around a needle file and just go over the surfaces get it all sharp and flat then for casting it will need a sprue but basically for me and my stone and what I plan to do with it this is correct if you've done yours and yours isn't going to be cast take off as much as you can get away with at the bottom so you don't want loads of space under the stone especially if you've done a big color like me and a massive stone we've got deep fires about the ring think about how high they're going to stick up above the finger so you need to think not just finishing it correctly but it's wearability for a customer what's it going to be like to wear and live with every day so make it as practical as possible by keeping it low I will have more videos coming soon maybe using this same collet turning that into a ring and I can explain that and then I can collaborate all my videos together and end up with like a 10 hour instructional video explaining everything you need to know to make a ring from start to finish from the perspective of a professional jeweler I'm not just someone who learned a college in now explaining what the teachers told me I've lived it for over two decades like making very high-end pieces for for discerning customers and when people are paying like twenty thirty thousand pounds or something it's gotta be done correctly and be good so the way I show you to do it is the best way thanks for watching see you next time

Channel: Diamond Mounter

Views: 13,931

Rating: 4.8791542 out of 5

Keywords: how to, jewellery, how to make, how to make a ring, hand make jewellery, how to make jewellery, professional jeweller, citrine, silver, instructions to make a ring, how to make an engagement ring, hand making a ring

Id: S_W4T9te1Y4

Length: 110min 58sec (6658 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 16 2019