Guide To Gemstone Settings

I love setting stone and this book was very helpful to me. Its illustrations were wonderful and give me new ways to approach the world of stone setting.

I am excited about making settings. This is a great guide!

There is a lot of information here, just the book for anyone interested in jewelry

This publication provides a wide variety of setting styles and provides nice diagrams & pictures for reference. Setting techniques are described in general, abbreviated terms, but not in the detail required to be of instructional use for those wanting to learn how to set gemstones and use the required tools & equipment.

If you’re looking for a how-to guide that will walk you through stone setting so well that you’ll be able to put the book down and get started, look somewhere else because this isn’t it. For one thing, the author doesn’t like traditional settings. Most people who buy jewelry generally steer towards traditional settings or variations on traditional settings. As a goldsmith, you learn the traditional stuff first, once you master those then you can get as weird and bizarre as you want if you can sell your pieces. The author doesn’t do traditional, she showcases and demonstrates what she probably thinks is ‘artistic,’ ‘unique,’ and ‘visionary.’ Whatever, it’s actually just weird and bizarre stuff few people will want to buy or wear. Now understand, I’m an artist and a goldsmith, I appreciate the weird and the bizarre, but I also understand that most people don’t. There’s a reason you learn the traditional things first because that’s mostly what you’re going to be selling if you work in this field. Then there’s the problem of the instructions. 2-4 pages are devoted to each stone setting style and technique. That’s it, you get 2-4 pages. I watched a full instructional guide on how to make a traditional regular halo setting ring (because that wasn’t covered in this book at all) with a center stone and just one row of halo stones and took detailed notes on everything the goldsmith said and did in the video, and it ended up being 60 pages long. You could read my notes, turn around, and make a traditional regular halo setting ring as long as you know how to solder and saw. So if it takes 60 pages to very carefully and thoroughly explain how to do ONE type of setting, what do you think you’ll really be able to learn from just 2-4 pages? The answer is: not much. This is more of a curiosity book for someone interested in the gist of how jewelry is made rather than a guide on how to make jewelry. There are numerous trade secrets, tips, and tricks that aren’t even hinted at in this book that you really need to know to be any good at setting even the most basic stone settings. There are stone settings that are so complex they could easily have an entire book devoted to just one type of setting, the things that can go wrong, how to fix them, and how to do any of their variations. But with this book, you get 2-4 pages. If you read this book, you’re still going to have to turn around and look up videos on how to do any of these settings because the instructions are so badly lacking. It’s kind of like the author just wanted to say she published a book without sharing anything actually useful about a trade that is traditionally very secretive. If you want an actual how-to guide for stone setting, get Alan Revere’s book Professional Stone Setting. It’s the most thorough book I’ve found thus far. Creative Stone Setting by Cogswell is also a good book. But this book I’m writing the review for? This book isn’t going to be listed among the legendary classics of goldsmithing books.

I really enjoyed this book. It has fantastic information on stones although I felt the instructions on some of the setting were vague. The book is beautiful and I am not sorry that I bought it. I was looking for inspiration ( in a slump right now 😞). I have not read through the entire book yet...

This is a must have book for anyone making jewellery and setting stones. It starts with a little history, moves on to design and tells you so much about gemstones that help you make and informed choice for your design. It then moves onto tools, techniques, all the different settings and how to do them. It is so easy to draw a few lines on a piece of paper but transferring them in the finished object often has pitfalls you cannot imagine. This book helped me to think deeper about the materials I was using and their suitability. Lovely clear diagrams and instructions, much of which is beyond my skills at this stage but oh what an inspiration to just learn more.

This is an interesting book, although not for the beginner. Has all you need to understand and set stone of any kind.

the book is quite precise, there is a lot of explanations with illustrations. I'm very happy to have the book!

Fabulous, comprehensive reference book ... it clearly describes / pictures all the methods for setting gems and provides excellent charts, etc. to simplify calculations..

Explicaciones con fotos y muchos ejemplos. Un libro que deberia estar en la estanteria de cualquier joyero. Explicaciones no super detalladas quizas para un nivel mas intermedio o conocimientos previos de joyeria.