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Daily Wire Tip Jan. 22: Creating Wire Settings for Faceted Stones

By on January 22, 2010
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Daily Wire Jewelry Making Tip
January 22, 2010

Question:

I have many cut stones which I would like to wire wrap, but all your designs incorporate snapsets, which I cannot get in South Africa.  How else can I wrap them so they are shown off effectively?

Answer:

Creating wire settings for faceted stones can be rather tricky. In my new book, Wirework, I share several such projects and give the complete formulas so you can set any size or shaped faceted stone!

Answer contributed by Dale “Cougar” Armstrong

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4 Comments

  1. avatar

    Mike

    January 22, 2010 at 8:36 am

    I have found that you need to work with fairly large stones (>11mm longest side) as generally speaking the wire that would work with smaller stones is not stiff enough to provide a secure mount. I have had success with as small as 22 guage half-hard square sterling silver wire using either bent prong or star prong designs. Bent prong is when you shape the wire around the stone fitting in 3 or more prongs as you bend the wire. A star prong is a bundle of three wires where you use them to form the prongs, allowing them to also wrap up around a wrap that goes around the stone. usually the shaped prong is used for non-flat stones and the star is used for ones that are flatter. You can also use a wrap where up to three thicknesses of flat wire are wraped around the stone and then you bend the top two such that they cradle the stone, but I have trouble trusting that one.

    • avatar

      dalecgr

      January 22, 2010 at 9:37 am

      Thanks Mike. This question is difficult to answer as I do not know what size stones are involved.
      (Folks, what Mike refers to as ‘bent prong’ I believe is what I term ‘pronged frame’.)

  2. avatar

    Betty Rader

    January 22, 2010 at 1:36 pm

    Why not just order the snapsets from Wire-Sculpture.com?

    • avatar

      dalecgr

      January 23, 2010 at 1:35 am

      Thanks Betty. I’m not sure what size or shape stones we are actually speaking of, but if they are small, snapsets could work. I’m pretty sure WS ships to South Africa. (But don’t quote me on that, it would be better to check with customer service!)