DIAMONDS

[Bumfrey]

So a guy wants a couple of white gold crowns with small diamonds covering the buccal faces. Any hints and tips before i throw myself into this. Love a challenge. Never done any before...
No idea what to charge.

 

[Juko]

As I understood it from researching things long ago.
First offf, good diamonds need to 'breath' so If You're gonna use good diamonds you really need to use ring type brackets.

Second thing is diamonds can survive the casting process of heat so if you wax them in and cast them directly into the metal.

Third thing is I believe diamonds dont sparkle unless light can flow through them.

Fourth thing is this all came from the internet years ago and I've never experimented with it.
It should be fun though.

 

[Bumfrey]

Was going to use cubic zirconia to be honest.
Casting into metal sounds good but i would worry about them moving once the wax is burned out. A claw of wax would work but if you wax them into a crown what would stop them moving?
Can you cast onto zirconia????
Going to try tomorrow.

 

[CatamountRob]

Take pictures!
I'd love to see how you do it and how it turns out.

 

[JMN]

Please let us know what happens. I had been asked, but didn't want to be responsible for the diamonds the guy wanted placed in his centrals.

 

[Bumfrey]

About to knock them out.....
The cubic zircs are too big but i'm doing more of a test than anything. They look rough as f...

 

[JMN]

/crossing fingers

 

[Bumfrey]

Didn't work. I had 4 'diamonds' on the face. Two had disappeared, the other two looked ok until i blasted the investment off. Then they looked cloudy
I'm guessing that glue my have to be the better option. Still i have learned one way how not to do it.

 

[Bumfrey]

Real diamonds might well work, but the blasting off of investment kills these guys.

 

[JMN]

Real diamonds might well work, but the blasting off of investment kills these guys.

They're 8.5 on move hardness scale vs diamonds 10(highest),but seems that is enough. Huh.

By chance do you have glass or plastic beads in your blaster? That may resurface them enough to shine again.

For pure curiosity, did you happen to have one take a test ride in the furnace at temp before investing?

 

[Bumfrey]

When i knocked it out i could see one of them fairly clearly. It looked GOOD. I used AlO2 to devest. Glass beads next time.
I'm going to try a ring for the wife. Maybe tomorrow if i get chance. Love learning new stuff, just time gets in the way.....and computer games. Yes i am a nerd.

 

[Bumfrey]

Didn't even think about glass beads or AlO2 to be honest, i just used what the box was set on. My bad.

 

[Bumfrey]

This is a before just as a guide.

 

[JMN]

When i knocked it out i could see one of them fairly clearly. It looked GOOD. I used AlO2 to devest. Glass beads next time.
I'm going to try a ring for the wife. Maybe tomorrow if i get chance. Love learning new stuff, just time gets in the way.....and computer games. Yes i am a nerd.

Glass beads may bring back some of the lost shine. Good trick I found when I overly enthusiastic ally devested my first UCLA and needed to reshine the interface at one spot.

Something I'm remembering also is a jeweler told me that I'd need a "wetting agent" for the stone when I looked into doing it. Flippercentral was in jewelry, maybe you could get some help via PM?

Nerds unite! Me too. Aside from my first Radio Shack computer running a motorola 68000 series cpu i've only ever owned 2 computers I didn't build, laptops both. For some reason I keep replaying DeusEx over and over trying to get through full stealth or minimal equipment or every pickup etc. My real weakness is classic console games and component level electronics.

 

[Bumfrey]

I kind of play any multiplayer games my son likes. Its good dad kid time. I love it.

 

[JMN]

I kind of play and multiply games my son likes. Its good dad kid time. I love it.

Any time with them is good time. I wish for days past now that I can't regain to have made better choices there.

You're in Australia right? always wondered how Paul Hogan's Crocodile Dundee was taken by people there.

 

[geoffteeth]

We have done a few of these in the past, we cast the metal work as normal incorporating clasps and had a local Jeweller mount the diamonds for us.

 

[Mark Blyumin]

The best way is to speak to a diamond setting jeweler. I think they have a wax pattern that you can incorporate into your casting. Then the diamond setter can set the diamonds. They can make metal shine under diamonds so they will sparkle. That is how I have made one case about 20 year ago.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[escopche]

I did one a couple years ago. I worked with a jeweler. He wanted it to fit tightly, after I cast and polished it I took it to him and he burnished it in.

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

Real diamonds might well work, but the blasting off of investment kills these guys.

use glass bead for divesting.
ive set a few gems in crowns before, the clasp around the gems is the tricky part. might be best to get the crown ready and pass it off to a jeweler. they have that stuff down. then polish and go. and of course add a hefty fee

whomever noted above, with diamonds they need air/space and lgith behind them in order to get the "diamond" look. light has to pass through diamonds