Seeking inspiration for setting a LuAg!

[nomezzalunaneeded]

Hello! I’ve lurked here a little in the past, and now would love your help finding setting inspiration for my everyday-adore-it ring.

The stone is a freakin’ awesome 5-carat beauty in an unusual hexagonal cut called "Fritillaria" (designed by Marco Voltolini). It’s 9.3 x 8.7 x 5.4mm - the shallow depth for a wide, beautifully-colorful stone is one of my favorite things about it.

This will be my wedding ring, and the first time I’ve ever had an everyday ring with a relatively fancy stone. Simple prong settings are not really my style... most of my jewelry has been super low-stakes, including rings with big honking’ stones that take up my whole finger and show their color in all lights. My favorite of all time was a checkerboard-faceted prehnite with a flat back (photo attached): it sat almost flush with my finger, didn’t grab ahold of my clothes or catch on my partner’s face or hair. I also talk with my hands, and so I want a setting that will help protect my stone from the occasional bump.

My idea for setting this ring was (I thought!) simple: a dark bezel around the stone itself (silver?), and then a slightly offset circle of white gold around it, so that the white gold contrasting with the dark metal makes the shape of a crescent moon. (Very amateur sketch attached.)

The absolutely fantastic person I bought this from (Phil, from AlternativesLapidary on Etsy) recommended a prong setting because “this particular stone (Fritillaria) does not have a straight girdle, but a zig-zagging girdle, which would make bezel setting it a bit of a nightmare”. Gak!

So I am on the hunt for inspiration - from folks with technical know-how about zig-zag girdles and bezels, from folks with beautiful and unusual hexogonal stone rings, from folks who might have creative ideas about how a prong setting could be surrounded by metal so that the sensory experience of the outside of the ring is smooth (without making it a straight-up signet, which is also not what I’m looking for). Anything and everything welcome: thank you for your help.

 

[LilAlex]

Lovely color -- like a tennis-ball yellow/acid green chrysoberyl. I had to dig but was happy to see a hardness of 8.4 for this material -- LuAG. The small "g" initially made me think it was silver, and the "garnet" name made me think it would be too soft for everyday wear. Still soft-ish for a lifetime of banging on things.

There are plenty of examples of bezel-setting polygonal stones. Here's one random one. Yours is not really polygonal and maybe that's the rub. Do you have a side view? Does it have a straight girdle (like an equator) or does it wander up and down?

 

[MarcoV]

In this design, the girdle is wavy...

 

[LilAlex]

Yeah that's tricky -- that was concern, above. The setter would need to cut a bezel down to a different level (while angling it) for each of those 12 sides. I assume al the pavilion facets are convex, which helps. I am not an expert but it would need to go to someone really, really good -- not the person/place your local jeweler typically hands things off to.

EDIT: Oh you're not the OP! Thank you for the reference! And lovely work in your avatar photo!

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

Marco is the designer-cutter. How about silver, it may be more malleable. Is Argentinium silver more malleable than reg, 925 silver? The stone could be incased in silver, the shank done in gold if you wish. Look for a silversmith maybe.

Annette

 

[ANeuro08]

I love LuAG, what a beautiful stone! And Phil is amazing. You might have a look at the ShinyPreciousGems or SyntheticGems subreddits, there are a lot of examples of precision cut stones in setting there. I know that the people who run ShinyPreciousGems also do settings and have a lot of experience setting unusual cuts, I'm having a custom-cut 'Paraiba' YAG set with them; not sure if they take gems that don't come from one of the subreddit lapidaries but it's worth a try!

 

[Starstruck8]

A faux bezel could look very cool.

An example. (Apologies to the owner, a PSer, whose name I have forgotten):

 

[Mooshi]

A faux bezel could look very cool.

An example. (Apologies to the owner, a PSer, whose name I have forgotten):

I really need to know whos this is and hoping there is a SMTB thread on it with videos somewhere!

 

[Autumn in New England]

I had to look this up! So it's like YAG, right? Very cool. Good luck with setting it!!

 

[Starstruck8]

I really need to know whos this is and hoping there is a SMTB thread on it with videos somewhere!

Found it!
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/got-my-rose-cut-of-my-dreams.270465/

 

[lovedogs]

A faux bezel could look very cool.

An example. (Apologies to the owner, a PSer, whose name I have forgotten):

This design would be so cool with the LuAg!!!

 

[nomezzalunaneeded]

In this design, the girdle is wavy...

Oh my goodness! I would never have expected that the designer of the cut would be here! Thank you for creating such a beautiful thing - my partner spent about ten minutes turning it around and around, saying that the way the light reflected inside looked like the radial symmetry of apple slices in a fancy tart. (He has a PhD in geometry, and so I love that he loves the math of it. )

 

[2Neesers]

Beautiful stone! Something along these lines could work, with a band style of your choice.


This is a very rough idea of how the outer circle of metal would look behind your stone and if you went with six prongs placed on the outer points

 

[nomezzalunaneeded]

Hello! I’ve lurked here a little in the past, and now would love your help finding setting inspiration for my everyday-adore-it ring.

The stone is a freakin’ awesome 5-carat beauty in an unusual hexagonal cut called "Fritillaria" (designed by Marco Voltolini). It’s 9.3 x 8.7 x 5.4mm - the shallow depth for a wide, beautifully-colorful stone is one of my favorite things about it.

This will be my wedding ring, and the first time I’ve ever had an everyday ring with a relatively fancy stone. Simple prong settings are not really my style... most of my jewelry has been super low-stakes, including rings with big honking’ stones that take up my whole finger and show their color in all lights. My favorite of all time was a checkerboard-faceted prehnite with a flat back (photo attached): it sat almost flush with my finger, didn’t grab ahold of my clothes or catch on my partner’s face or hair. I also talk with my hands, and so I want a setting that will help protect my stone from the occasional bump.

My idea for setting this ring was (I thought!) simple: a dark bezel around the stone itself (silver?), and then a slightly offset circle of white gold around it, so that the white gold contrasting with the dark metal makes the shape of a crescent moon. (Very amateur sketch attached.)

The absolutely fantastic person I bought this from (Phil, from AlternativesLapidary on Etsy) recommended a prong setting because “this particular stone (Fritillaria) does not have a straight girdle, but a zig-zagging girdle, which would make bezel setting it a bit of a nightmare”. Gak!

So I am on the hunt for inspiration - from folks with technical know-how about zig-zag girdles and bezels, from folks with beautiful and unusual hexogonal stone rings, from folks who might have creative ideas about how a prong setting could be surrounded by metal so that the sensory experience of the outside of the ring is smooth (without making it a straight-up signet, which is also not what I’m looking for). Anything and everything welcome: thank you for your help.

Found it!
https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/got-my-rose-cut-of-my-dreams.270465/

Starstruck8, the second ring in that picture actually caught my eye - the prongs hardly register! *And* the setting makes a soft, rounded square shape, which I love.

Thank you to everyone for the ideas so far!

 

[Starstruck8]

Starstruck8, the second ring in that picture actually caught my eye - the prongs hardly register! *And* the setting makes a soft, rounded square shape, which I love.

Thank you to everyone for the ideas so far!

In that ring, the stone is round and the four groups of prongs fill out the corners of the square. (Notice that the middle 'prong' in each group is a dummy.) Your stone is basically hexagonal. Prongs at each of the 'high' sharper corners (as they must be, I think?) would make the outline 'more hexagonal' rather than rounder. So it will take some thinking to make the concept work.

I don't have any great ideas to achieve this. (If it were my stone, I'd want to emphasize the unusual hexagonal shape and wavy girdle. But it's not.) This long thread of pieces by a very popular designer around here may give some ideas:
https://www.pricescope.com/communit...-jewelry-the-new-cvb-eye-candy-thread.211825/

 

[2Neesers]

@Starstruck8 makes excellent points! Here is a very rough idea of what a soft cushion outline would look like with four prongs on your stone. You’ll have more space in the four corners than a traditional round would because of the points in the outer edge of your stone. You could fill the corner spaces with something interesting..you mentioned crescent moons, maybe something along those lines.
I’m going to tag the amazing @CHRISTY-DANIELLE and she if she has any ideas that might work for you

 

[CHRISTY-DANIELLE]

I would do a pseudo bezel. A round "wall" around the stone. The prongs would come from inside the wall and not be in the way above it. (I had a ring done like this and never had a problem with the prongs catching on things). The outside edges would all be smooth.
You could use blackened silver/ gold or maybe even black diamonds?
I don't know how literal you were about the moon shape but I love this idea with that other-worldly stone!

 

[CHRISTY-DANIELLE]

And since a shallow ring, maybe the bottom, the part against your finger would look like this:

 

[luckygreen317]

I would do a pseudo bezel. A round "wall" around the stone. The prongs would come from inside the wall and not be in the way above it. (I had a ring done like this and never had a problem with the prongs catching on things). The outside edges would all be smooth.
You could use blackened silver/ gold or maybe even black diamonds?
I don't know how literal you were about the moon shape but I love this idea with that other-worldly stone!

@CHRISTY-DANIELLE are you are a jewelry designer? If not, you should be! Very creative.

 

[CHRISTY-DANIELLE]

@CHRISTY-DANIELLE are you are a jewelry designer? If not, you should be! Very creative.

Oh so sweet of you to say! Actually that would be a dream job to me! I just got my first setting tools so I'm early stages. I'm hoping to get a jewelry cad program. But I love designing jewelry- I could do it all day!
My real life nursing job pays the bills.

 

[luckygreen317]

Oh so sweet of you to say! Actually that would be a dream job to me! I just got my first setting tools so I'm early stages. I'm hoping to get a jewelry cad program. But I love designing jewelry- I could do it all day!
My real life nursing job pays the bills.

I am going to get your opinion on my next project!