Durability/wearablity of WF open cathedral?

[Gayletmom]

I wear my rings every day and one of the other posts got me thinking about which settings might be well suited to "Mom level heavy-duty" usage. I am leaning towards something like the WF Petite Cathedral, photo attached. It looks like the side stones might be a shared prong setting? What do you think about that for reliability?

 

[coatimundi_org]

I'm sure that WF setting is durable, but you might want to consider a plain solitaire--for your lifestyle. I'm not a mom, but I definitely appreciate the ease of wearing a simple solitaire. You might also want to consider a channel or bead setting.

 

[Gayletmom]

Thanks for the advice. I need to go see some more settings in person-it''s so hard to tell about the details from pics. I think that I want a few side stones if they are reasonably secure. I''ve seen some pretty ones that I like that are described as bead set. How does that differ from channel? From what I am reading, it sounds like pave is not for me, as beautiful as it is.

 

[neatfreak]

Date: 12/10/2008 11:11:00 PM
Author: Gayletmom
Thanks for the advice. I need to go see some more settings in person-it''s so hard to tell about the details from pics. I think that I want a few side stones if they are reasonably secure. I''ve seen some pretty ones that I like that are described as bead set. How does that differ from channel? From what I am reading, it sounds like pave is not for me, as beautiful as it is.

Channel is more secure as the stones are set in a channel. Bead set is similar to pave, each stone is set with a teensy little bead.

I think the WF setting would be fine, as long as you are ok with the possibility of losing a stone every now and then.

 

[Gayletmom]

THanks for the info. I"m trying to get a sense of durability of the various setting types. Do I have this right, broadly, that pave & bead set would be on the more delicate end of the scale and then channel on the other end? Where would shared prong side stones fall in there? Are there some other methods of setting fairly small stones securely?

 

[neatfreak]

Date: 12/11/2008 9:30:37 AM
Author: Gayletmom
THanks for the info. I''m trying to get a sense of durability of the various setting types. Do I have this right, broadly, that pave & bead set would be on the more delicate end of the scale and then channel on the other end? Where would shared prong side stones fall in there? Are there some other methods of setting fairly small stones securely?

Yes, you are right. Shared prong IMO is somewhere in the middle. The most secure for small stones is channel I believe. But at some point if you want pave, you just need to buy it, baby it a bit, and realize that at some point you will lose a stone and that it''s ok.

 

[kcoursolle]

You may occassionally loose a stone. This isn''t a big deal and can be replaced affordably, but if you think this is going to be a PITA...then you may want a different type of setting. I think it would take quite a bit more force to "smoosh" that setting than a very thin pave setting style. Any chance you could just take it off when you are at home cleaning and doing heavy-duty work?

 

[swingirl]

I have a shared prong band from WF with ACA melee stones and I rarely take it off. I do wear gloves when I use chemicals and wouldn''t wear it if I was moving heavy items like furniture or digging in the dirt (but I wouldn''t wear a plain band doing those things either because it could get bent). But I do everything else in it; house cleaning, cooking, etc.

 

[Gayletmom]

Kcoursolle and Swingirl, many thanks for the input. I do usually take off my rings or wear gloves when cleaning, etc. so a shared prong might work pretty well. I''m not extremely hard on jewelry (at least I haven''t broken anything yet!) but I''m not dainty either. I''ll definitely be having some discussions with the jeweler about the sturdy factor when I get to that point but this helps me to narrow my options a bit.