Make a Bezel-Forming Jig for Odd-Shaped Settings
Better Bezels
How to create a hand helper for fitting odd-shaped settings
By Helen I. Driggs
I often use as-found, recycled, or unconventional materials in my work, and it’s sometimes difficult to create a cleanly fabricated nonstandard bezel for them, especially when I use thick or hard stock such as sterling silver or if what I’m setting is large. Recently, I purchased a new cutting board for my kitchen and rather than throw out the old one, I thought I’d make a nonmarring bezel-forming jig to help me build better settings for oddly shaped objects.
For this project, you’ll need a thickish old plastic cutting board, a T-square, a few angles or a protractor, a marker, and a ruler.
This jig will be 3 inches wide, and I reserved another 3 inch section of the plastic cutting board to create some other tools with later. Use the 45-degree angle and T-square to indicate a triangle cutout centered in a 3 inch section of the board.
Use a 30-degree angle to mark a more acute triangle on the other end of the section. Saw out the jig using a coarse jeweler’s saw blade, a hacksaw, or a power saw, if you’d like. I cut my board with a coarse jeweler’s saw blade, size 4. I also used a coarse general-purpose file to clean the plastic burrs from all the sawed edges.
I set a lot of round things, such as buttons, coins, and vintage objects, so I opted to also cut half of a 1 inch diameter circle and a 1.25 inch diameter circle on one side of the jig. I used a circle template to create the half-circles, but you could also use a compass or trace a jar lid.
Once I sawed everything out, I cleaned up all the sharp edges for a final time with a coarse utility file.
This plastic jig is nonmarring, and the thickness of the cutting board is a generous 3/8 inch. The advantage of the jig is that it keeps the walls of any shaped bezel vertical, and leverage against the jig makes it easy to turn tight curves.
By adding a C-clamp, the jig can also be secured and used during setting with a standard bezel rocker to help cradle and steady the work and give you something to push against.
Oddly shaped bezels can easily be pushed to conform to stones or objects without marring the bezel wire or damaging a fragile object.