On a rainy Sunday, I started to mess around with some leftover 14 gauge round silver wire I had in my drawer.  I rounded it twice against a steel ring mandrel and when I looked at it, something clicked in my head and that’s when I new exactly what I wanted to do.

I took two oval cabochons, one amethyst, the other blue topaz, and made silver bezels for each of them. For the bezels I used flat 20 gauge sheet and 18 gauge square wire to make a seat for the stone.

I soldered the bezels into the ring, not as easy as I thought it was since everything has to line up perfectly and the heat of the flame tends to move things when you least expect it.

Once the soldering was over, I pickled and removed the flux and oxidation.

Then I sanded the silver with 220, 400, and 600 grit sand paper. I placed the stones in the bezel just to see how it would look. I can’t set the stones until the piece is polished thoroughly.

I pre-polish using brown tripoli and do my final polish with yellow rouge.

I set the stones… and voila! It’s done.