Term 1, Weeks 9 and 10
Fancy bezels, prongs and bails
Instructions
Make a fancy bezel-set pendant with a decorative bail. The fancy bezel setting must be handmade by you.
Make a pendant with a prong-set fireable stone and bail that has movement.
The bail for the prong set piece must have movement.
The bezel setting must be handmade by you - A fancy bezel in this case means that the stone you are setting is not perfectly round - it may be oval, pear-shaped etc. It also incorporates some decoration of the bezel e.g. using scissors to cut a shaped bezel strip, adding embellishments etc.
For the prong set piece, the bail that has movement is demonstrated in the course. This means that the bail is not static on the piece, it can move.
We were given two weeks to complete this project.
This was my favourite project and I really enjoyed making them both.
Prong set pendant
I chose an art deco design for this week. The stone is beautiful and worked well with the linear design. My friend is the person who popularised the term ‘art deco’ back in the fifties, and my inspiration came from reading a book on Art Deco that he wrote.
I decided on using only two prongs for this (top and bottom) and wanted them to be in keeping with the overall design.
The bale was constructed and allows the pendant to move.
When I put the pendant into the barrel polisher, it came out with a large dink on the front of the piece. I worked very hard to remove the dink without damaging or changing the piece, and I am pleased to say it worked.
Fancy bezel set pendant
Unusually I drew the design that I had in my head (which I don’t normally do). I chose a beautiful carnelian bead as my stone. The bead was round so I flattened off the back to make a cabochon. The bezel was cut from a plain bezel strip to make the top more interesting. As carnelian cannot be fired, a plaster ‘investment’ was used in the kiln to stop the piece from shrinking too much and then the stone would not fit. I added a small round carnelian bead, where again, I flattened the back to set. The texture on the back plate is from a very old jewellery box inherited from my mum. There are holes in the back plate to allow light to shine through to the stone.
