A Simple Soldered Bezel Ring

Wire, and specifically cold forming wire, is one of the few hobbies I have that predate when I started sewing. It's not something I've done a lot with, but it's something I've played with consistently. I find it relaxing. And often fulfilling. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before trying my hand at hot work. This ring is my first successful attempt. 

Bezel settings are seen all throughout history, up through modern day, so this seemed like the perfect starting point. 

I had a few mistakes before I really started making progress. I melted my first bezel. My fine silver bezel wire is 1/4 wide. Which is substantially wider than needed for this stone. I successfully soldered my second bezel and then tried to cut it down. That didn't work. The thing was so soft that it mangled. Third time's a charm! I cut the bezel wire down FIRST. 

Then it was a snap to shape it and cut it to length. 

That got soldered closed, and then attached to a sterling silver back plate. 

Dime for scale, pre-solder. You can see the tiny, tiny pieces of solder around the inside edge. 

Post-solder, it needs a pickle bath to remove some of the excess flux and oxidation. Then I cut three excess silver with a jewelry saw. 

Then came a lot of time with files and sandpaper as it passed through these stages. 

I ended up actually removing a little more than I had wanted, but you have to look at it this closely to see that. 

Moving onto the band, I used a 2x1 mm half round wire that I filed on the ends to make a slight knife edge.

These pieces are ready to be soldered together. 

I cleaned up that join on both sides, then got ready to set the stone. 

Pre-setting. It's held in pretty firmly, but it could still fall out. Many period examples look exactly like this, and I honestly can't figure out what's ensuring the stones stay in place. There has to be more than can be seen from the outside. 

And there's the finished ring. It just needs to be polished. The bezel is a little uneven around the top edge, but again, you need to look very, very closely to see that. I did thoroughly go over the entire thing with 1000, 2000, and 3000 grit sandpaper. All of the finishing on this piece has been done with hand tools. The butane torch is the only tool used that isn't entirely hand powered.