Wire Wrapping Tutorial: Prong Setting

in this video I'm going to show you the start to finish process that I use for creating these wire prong settings I chose to use faceted gemstone for this project in the video but the same style of setting could easily be applied for natural crystals or cabs this style of stone setting is really efficient on materials using very minimal amount of wire to hold the stone securely in a way that exposes as much of the natural beauty of the stone as possible the materials that I'll be using for this project are two pieces of 21 gauge square both 4 inches long in one faceted gemstone I've chosen to use this 8 by 10 oval faceted quartz taking our first square wire I'm gonna pinch approximately in the middle that way I have equal working distance on both sides Bend 90 degrees into the square next I'm going to bend another 90 degrees straight out to either side as close to the same height as possible I'm gonna finish that bend straight down towards the bottom flattening it from both sides so that the squares should sit parallel to each other as they're running back down the length of the wire let's do the same on the other side and when I pinch it this way the wire net truly wants to displace you can't see it cuz it's a little bit small then will bulge out on either side and create kind of this rounded tip I want it to sit flush which is why I want to pinch it all the way from both directions which will cause it to bow back out this way and then finally to sit flat then going to take the wire and bend it another 90 degrees off to one side creating the first half of our prong setting now that one side is complete I'm going to go ahead and do the same for the other side pinching my wire as close to the center as possible in approximately the same location on my pliers so that the sizing will be the same and the distance between the prongs will be the same on both sides gonna just repeat the same process bending the wires out to either side so that they are approximately the same height and flatten those prongs down so the wires sit parallel and flush to each other back down the length and then once I have them in place bending that extra 90 degrees to create the other half of our prong setting now that we have the two halves of our basket that will make up the prong setting we need to prepare them to connect to do so I'm going to take in my case the right hand side and slide it with my two square wires ending between the prongs down until it's approximately the width of my stone from there I can take my pliers and Bend another 90 degrees into my wire now that I have the distance I can take my next set of prongs and bend them the same distance as close as possible now that both of my wires are prepared I'm going to take one wire and slide it down into the other so that my wire endings are between the prongs and then take the other two squares and slide those wire endings between the prongs should give me almost like a little basket just like this for the stone to sit in before we can set the stone we do want to go ahead and secure these two wires together I'm going to work from opposite corners wrapping my square wire around the prong making sure that I don't pull too tight as it will cause our basket to lose its form finished basket for the prong setting should look something like this to prepare these prongs for stone setting I'm going to pinch with my pliers just at the line where you can see the wire folds back in on itself and go ahead and put a bend in towards the center of the basket in all four prongs next I want to go ahead and slide the stone into place holding it with my thumb and my middle finger in my left hand I'm going to carefully go through and flatten the prongs into place with my pliers pinching both sections of wire at the bottom and from the prong very careful not to put too much pressure on the stone and making sure that as I apply pressure the stone is sitting straight and even in our setting I want to work from opposite corners again just like I did when I was setting up the basket to make sure that all the pressure is applied evenly throughout the setting the finished setting should look something like this the stone is fully secured into these prongs it shouldn't wiggle or rattle at all if you shake it next to your ear from here I can use my left over square wires on all four corners to secure this setting into the frame of a pendant as always a huge thank you goes out to those who are already supporting the channel through patreon if you're interested in helping support what I'm doing here check out the link to my patreon in the description of this video you

Channel: Raftark Jewelry

Views: 97,141

Rating: 4.9503722 out of 5

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Id: O9dKFyj_d0s

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2020