evergreen
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2012
- Messages
- 851
You know how you get a song stuck in your head and it just won't go away? That's how I've been about 5-stone rings... since January. But especially over the last several days, stuck at home with a head cold. (Have to sit up and read PS to breathe through my nose! And oh, the inspiration on here...!) I think it's time for next steps!
I'll be wearing it as a RHR or in lieu of wedding set (platinum), and probably not stacking it with anything since it will be so fabulous it will stand alone. I'd like the stones to go about 36% of the way around the ring - yes, I have done the math! - and that puts me in the 1.25-1.75cttw range on a size 6.5 finger.
But to know exactly what diameters to look for (or, at least, what cumulative diameter would work), I need to decide on bezeled vs prong-set. So now I'm weighing pros and cons of bezel vs prong with little OECs and need your help!
Bezel example: (from cheapo eBay seller of diamond things... but no, we are not going to give up on our OEC dreams!)
Pro bezel: Well, all my rings are bezel. Literally all of them. I like the way it looks, protecting the stone and giving them a little more visual impact. It also might help the diameters look a little less wonky, and give me a bit more leeway with turning rovals or chubby cushion-adjacent cuts into matching rounds. And, in case it's hard to find enough in the same color range, maybe a little more visual separation would smooth over those differences, too. But how easy will it be to bezel nonstandard OEC wonky roval shapes, and keep it looking smoothly connected like the example?
Prong example: (I'd probably go with a standard (gorgeous) U-prong, like woofmama's BGD beauty)
Pro-prong: Well, what a gorgeous ring. It gives me little flutters of delight in a way the bezeled ring doesn't. From the top, all you see is diamonds (and, well, from the side too, practically). But can I subject OECs, with their extremely thin girdles and maybe already a few flea-bites, to such an open setting? I am also not careful with my rings and am explicitly grateful for the sturdy bezel around my e-ring OEC at least a couple times a week. I don't know that these little old diamonds really deserve such unkind treatment, and I'm pretty sure that the first chip I get, the ring goes into the jewelry box and stays there forever.
Also, without the intervening 1mm-ish of gold between each diamond, I'm looking at 4.8mm diamonds which is getting up there. (I didn't mention a budget... it's more, try to get the best deal within the goal parameters. Probably $2-3k? North of $3000 would make me sad, mostly because I feel like I ought to be able to accomplish this with patience and <$3000.)
So, wearers and lovers of 5-stone rings, what's your advice? Is it going to be prohibitively difficult to bezel slightly irregular OECs, or prohibitively risky to prong-set them? Or what about semi-bezel options or more protective prongs or other hybrid designs?
Has anyone else had to make this choice -- form vs function -- and is happy with what she decided, or wishes she'd gone the other way?
I'll be wearing it as a RHR or in lieu of wedding set (platinum), and probably not stacking it with anything since it will be so fabulous it will stand alone. I'd like the stones to go about 36% of the way around the ring - yes, I have done the math! - and that puts me in the 1.25-1.75cttw range on a size 6.5 finger.
But to know exactly what diameters to look for (or, at least, what cumulative diameter would work), I need to decide on bezeled vs prong-set. So now I'm weighing pros and cons of bezel vs prong with little OECs and need your help!
Bezel example: (from cheapo eBay seller of diamond things... but no, we are not going to give up on our OEC dreams!)
Pro bezel: Well, all my rings are bezel. Literally all of them. I like the way it looks, protecting the stone and giving them a little more visual impact. It also might help the diameters look a little less wonky, and give me a bit more leeway with turning rovals or chubby cushion-adjacent cuts into matching rounds. And, in case it's hard to find enough in the same color range, maybe a little more visual separation would smooth over those differences, too. But how easy will it be to bezel nonstandard OEC wonky roval shapes, and keep it looking smoothly connected like the example?
Prong example: (I'd probably go with a standard (gorgeous) U-prong, like woofmama's BGD beauty)
Pro-prong: Well, what a gorgeous ring. It gives me little flutters of delight in a way the bezeled ring doesn't. From the top, all you see is diamonds (and, well, from the side too, practically). But can I subject OECs, with their extremely thin girdles and maybe already a few flea-bites, to such an open setting? I am also not careful with my rings and am explicitly grateful for the sturdy bezel around my e-ring OEC at least a couple times a week. I don't know that these little old diamonds really deserve such unkind treatment, and I'm pretty sure that the first chip I get, the ring goes into the jewelry box and stays there forever.
Also, without the intervening 1mm-ish of gold between each diamond, I'm looking at 4.8mm diamonds which is getting up there. (I didn't mention a budget... it's more, try to get the best deal within the goal parameters. Probably $2-3k? North of $3000 would make me sad, mostly because I feel like I ought to be able to accomplish this with patience and <$3000.)So, wearers and lovers of 5-stone rings, what's your advice? Is it going to be prohibitively difficult to bezel slightly irregular OECs, or prohibitively risky to prong-set them?
Or what about semi-bezel options or more protective prongs or other hybrid designs? Has anyone else had to make this choice -- form vs function -- and is happy with what she decided, or wishes she'd gone the other way?
The bezels are delicate perfection, and with that gallery...! I've heard/seen such good things about CvB's work and great to hear another endorsement of someone who is very comfortable - and extremely capable -working with old stones.
) if you're going to obscure so much of the diamond? I'm putting together a design in PowerPoint and hoping to get some wisdom about whether it's too structurally weak to succeed... more soon.
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