Collet Conversion: Prong Setting to Bar Setting | Jewellery Making Tutorial | GWS

Rings are things that come in for a reason, otherwise people would just wear them and be happy with them. This particular ring came in because the stone itself started chipping, it started getting some damage and the customer wanted to come up with a different solution so that we can have the stone more protected and also that the stone setting works a little bit better with the whole design of the ring and that's exactly what we did for this particular ring. It's a pink stone with some diamonds and crucially it was in platinum. Crucially because it means you have to work with it in a very specific way. Yeah. My name is Joakim, behind the camera as per usual is Damaya and this is our workshop and what we do as you know if you've been around we tell you about what comes through the workshop and we try and explain it so that it makes sense to you the person who is interested in making jewelry or also the regular person walking in the streets thinking I've never understood how to make jewelry let me click on this channel and have a look. Where do we start? We're going to remove the center stone that's definitely going to happen because we have to rebuild the setting. Where we start with something like that is usually just analyzing the entire project. What are we dealing with? The size of the ring might change because we're going to be working on it so we're going to take the size. We're going to at this point look if the ring is absolutely round and if it's not we're going to round it up and get it back to its normal original state. All of these little factors count. Now what is the style? What is it going to be? We're going to come up with a concept as the side stones are set which is kind of like two flaps of metal holding the stones. These baguette stones work very well like that because it exposes the stone and this little step down that you have on the side over here also makes a lot of sense for the top stone. We already have a feature over here and then we've got the center stone all exposed with four claws which completely in my mind sort of breaks the whole design. I've discussed this concept with the customer and she was very happy with the idea that we mirror the same concept. We're going to take the center stone out and I said crucially in the beginning regarding platinum because we also have to remove the diamonds as we're working with this but for now center stone comes out and I'm going to do the work that I need to do. I'm going to prep it before we get to the stage where we have to remove the diamonds. I'm not going to be using any of these claws so I'm removing them by cutting them off, removing the stone that way. The stone is already damaged. We're going to try and preserve what we have of the stone. With a damaged stone you can also have the stone repolished as they say if it's cut and it's broken or something on the side over here it means that the whole stone's dimensions are going to change completely and we didn't want to do that. These little cracks on the sides we're going to hide those. I'm removing the stone by cutting it out because that's the least trauma that I can put on a fragile stone already. I'm removing all of the previous setting except for the bottom section because there's enough of the bottom section left that I can reshape it and also it holds my ring together so there's no change on it whatsoever. I just need to remove everything in between so I can rebuild the setting. Carbon discs are really like incredibly fragile but incredibly hard little discs so they don't flex and if you're using these a lot of people could use them to cut but they're quite thick to cut so what I use them for is to get detailed levels cut on the sides. Then you know it's going to be completely flat. That's exactly it then I know exactly that I'm going to get a flat surface because they just don't bend. If they do bend they break. We're going to use very little pressure at high speed bringing it right up to the actual edge where the diamonds are and not touching the diamonds by the way I'm working very carefully here but I'm flattening the areas out where the previous setting was. I'm trying to force this rectangular shape into the ring and the bottom of the ring now shows a nice oval because that's what you do when you're putting an oval stone and an oval setting on top of it. Since everything is excavated now everything is gone from the top that little cavity is completely open and I'm only working with that little section at the bottom. It now has all the access for me to get in there and reshape that into a rectangle. The little hole at the bottom I prefer to be the same shape as the diamonds because we are repeating that section. There's often the situation where customers bring something in especially where the claws wear down where the mount that's bought doesn't quite fit the stone. I'm not saying that's what happened here but you have more of a cushion cut shape that's been put into a perfectly oval setting. Visually it works but at the same time you're somewhere sacrificing something. It's not lying exactly how it should lie. I've got to remove the diamonds out of platinum. I'm doing that because I'm working with incredible heat here. What happens to diamonds on the heat that it requires to do the work correctly is if you get to the level of heat that you need for the platinum to do exactly what you want it to do it what we refer to as it burns the diamonds. If I was you and you're working with platinum you're getting into it and you're questioning if a diamond's gonna burn or not you can always reset the stone it's much easier than having to reset them and have them repolished and pay for the postage and the polish and the emotional turmoil and the time frame on top of that literally you just have to lift the one side up and the stone will come out so it's only two parts that hold these stones fold just the one edge up pop the stone out put them on the side in sequence as they were I'm starting with the support as the stones run in lengthwise I'm now going into the frame I'm going to be placing something at the bottom bringing it right up to the top and I'm creating two places where the stone is going to lie on the edges on the side these settings are simple to make the set work becomes a little bit more involved because the stones have got a rounding but that's another video altogether now that I have my two center plates in place I take those plates and I file them down at the angle so that I can bring my two side plates on at an angle as I've explained I'm not going to do them straight the ring forms towards the center mainly what I'm trying to do is to hide anything that I'm building on the inside so it lies on top of that and you don't see spaces there and from the outside point once I put those two little plates on the stone mustn't fit because I want to cut one third into either side so that I can then bend that those plates over the stone itself every ring it comes in we try and do something personalized this ring came in with very small letters cut into the side profile to give it a little bit more of a personal feel the two letters represent the two people involved in this engagement and I felt that we are going to do the same it actually broke up those big plain plates quite nicely I was told that this ring was delivered with great joy try to take this design and force it back into something that works better with the ring itself very very cool the way that it became one thing and and and it just there was no more fighting yeah nobody was fighting with each other the whole thing was just we're all friends now we're all one family it's still on good terms because these bars were bars and the claws were like where are you from what you're doing over here why are you dismantling why are you fighting with us please like and subscribe it supports the channel if the channel grows we can do more of this you know the deal see you next time cheers