Setting the Aquamarine

We are down to the nerve wracking part of the project, make or break... as it were.
Stone setting is fairly straightforward. You create a "seat" for the stone and then you push, burnish or hammer metal down to cover the very edge of the stone and catch it in place. The trick is not to chip, scratch or shatter the stone when hammering on it. Aquamarine is a fairly tough stone and can take a fair bit of the force required to bezel set a cabochon. Here I am filing the edge of the bezel to make it easier to push over the stone.

I like my bezels to look really thick. This means that there is a lot of metal to move so the edge needs to be cut on an angle to help in the pushing. This is called a "chamfer" facet. I use my flexshaft and a cylinder burr to remove metal quickly.

I use a ball burr to remove the last bit of material at the edge.

I then put the stone in the seat and tack it with a dot of crazy glue to prevent it from jumping around when I am hammering on it, that's one sure way to crack a stone.

I use a pistol grip chasing hammer and a steel pusher to hammer the metal down onto the edge of the stone. Almost finished...