Bezel set gemstone rings are all the rage nowadays! Its design is simple and elegant, and highlights gemstones perfectly. It is probably the simplest type of setting to make from scratch, making it a great and economical choice for both shoppers and independent jewelers.

So why not try to make one out of PMC3? I've always wanted a bezel stone ring, but I didn't want an engagement one (I wanted something classy and timeless). I recently discovered a plethora of faceted cabochons on Etsy. They are so beautiful and are perfect for this task.

Note: If you're completely new to PMC3, I would recommend visiting my first PMC3 tutorial and going through that first to get a feel for the clay and the tools.

Finished product - labradorite ring. Looks fancy in that box, yea?

For your first time making a bezel ring, it is best to use a round faceted/non-faceted cabochon that is at least 7mm in diameter. I started out with 6mm, and it can be pretty finicky to work with even for my small hands.

materials

All of these things can be bought for fairly cheap online at sites like riogrande.com, or in craft stores with jewelry specialty.

• PMC3 of course - 6.3g is enough for most ring sizes
• Fine silver bezel wire - 1/8 x .010" (30 gauge) worked well, you only need a 1" strip or so. Make sure it's fine silver, not sterling. Example from Rio Grande
• Round cabochon of your liking - should be at least 7mm in diameter
• Metal file set - (~$10)
• Sandpaper or nail filers - various grits between 400 and 800
• Burnisher - (~$4)
• Butane torch - any ol' kitchen butane torch will work
• Olive oil
• Distilled water
• Bezel rocker / pusher (optional, ~$4)
• Mandrel

step 1 - figure out your pmc ring size

You need to know your ring size to figure out the PMC3 ring size, which is 10-12% larger because of shrinkage. Use this online conversion to help with that.

• Say you're a (US) size 4. According to the conversion chart, size 4 has a diameter of 14.86mm. Assuming PMC3 shrinks 12%, then divide 14.86mm by 88%. In other words:

14.86 / .88 = 16.88mm

• Now pick a larger size on the online conversion until the diameter shows something close to 16.88mm. In this case:

Size 6-1/4 = 16.71mm
Size 6-1/2 = 16.92mm

So our PMC3 ring size is around 6-1/2. You will wrap your PMC around that mark on your mandrel.

step 2 - prepare the bezel

• Prepare a little PMC paste by mixing a tiny amount of PMC and a tiny drop of distilled water. I have heard essential oils like lavender oil work well in the mix here too. Mix the paste until it has a yogurt like texture, adding more water sparingly if necessary. This will act as the glue for your putting silver pieces together.
• Take the fine silver bezel wire and wrap one end around the cabochon. Mark where the wire meets for cutting. Cut a little more wire than the mark to allow for filing.
• File both ends of the bezel wire so they're even and smooth. Wrap wire around the gem again to ensure it fits just right.
• Spread a little bit of PMC paste onto both ends of the bezel wire. "Glue" both ends together. If the wire bounces back apart, tighten the curve by wrapping it around something smaller, like the file handle. Make sure there is not much PMC oozing out from the inside of the bezel or it will block the cabochon later.
• Let bezel airdry or use a hairdryer/heat gun. 

step 3 -make the ring shank

I won't go through all the steps here, as that's all covered in my previous tutorial, except I didn't flatten the shank here, I left it round.

Rolling out the clay with an acrylic block. Oil surfaces to prevent stickiness.

• Cover the mandrel with some parchment paper to prevent stickiness.
• Wrap shank around the mandrel where your PMC ring size is marked.
• Using some more clay, make a flattened circle for the base of the gemstone bezel cup. Make it a bit bigger than the gem because it will shrink 10-12%.
• Glue base to the shank with water or the PMC paste.

• Let ring airdry or use a hairdryer / heatgun. When dried, carefully remove ring from the mandrel.
• At this point, carefully file and sand the ring into a style you like. You can sand the shank flat at the sides so it's not as round or add any other designs to it.
• Carefully sand the cup base so that it is flat and will hold the bezel wire without gaps in between. You can also sand the base smaller if necessary, but remember to accommodate for the shrinkage. Do this carefully as the clay is still brittle, you can continue to make refinements after firing.

step 4 - the firing

You will fire the bezel and the ring shank separately first.

• Fire the bezel for about 2 minutes (again, for basic firing instructions, refer to previous tutorial). Quench in water to cool.
• File and sand the extra bits of fired PMC smooth on the outside so that the bezel looks like one continuous piece. Do not sand too deep.
• Next, fire the ring shank. Quench in water to cool.
• File and sand the ring shank to your desired finish.
• Place the bezel over the cup base of the ring, ensuring the bezel is round and centered. Use a fine point permanent marker to trace around the bezel on the cup base (see picture below). Now sand around the cup base until you reach the circle and the bezel fits right on top of base. This part can be tedious if your base is much bigger than needed (took me almost an hour), but you will get to it!

step 5 - put it all together

• Rewet and reform that PMC paste if necessary. Spread paste along one side of the bezel loop and glue it onto the base. It is better to use more than less paste. Make sure there is not excess paste inside the bezel that will be in the way of the gem (outside is okay). Scratch off excess with a toothpick or needle.
• Apply more paste onto any areas on the outside where you can still see the seam between bezel and base. Let dry.

Bezel "glued" to cup base with PMC paste

• Fire this piece once again, for about 3 minutes. Quench to cool.
• File and sand smooth, making sure not to sand to deep and breaking the connection. File and sand the bezel shorter so it fits the size of the gem. It should not be too tall, but just enough to hold the cabochon at the sides.
• Place gem into the bezel cup. If it doesn't fit immediately, use some pliers to bend bezel into a fitting shape.
• Use the bezel rocker/pusher to push the bezel flush against the curve side of the cabochon.
• Complete any finishing touches and sand entire piece smooth. Polish with the burnisher until you reach a high shine, if desired.

There you have it! It may be tedious work making one of these from scratch, but it's totally fun and rewarding in the end!

PMC3 is definitely one of my newest and most exciting obsessions!

This stuff is amazing! They're little balls of clay that come in packets of different sizes. I picked up a 9g one. It was enough to make two rings for my small fingers.

Basically, it works like this. You take out the clay, play with it a bit, shape it into something you want. Wait for it to dry. Then fire it in a kiln or with a torch. When it cools, give it a good scrub and polish. And...voila! You have silver!!! PURE (well, 99.9%) SILVER!!!

It is incredible! I am still in complete awe at this and cannot believe I only recently discovered this. WHERE have I been? I can barely grasp the fact that I was able to make some silver rings out of my own apartment with a few simple tools and a torch.

"Read more" to view the process of making a PMC3 ring. It's more of a long visual walkthrough of my first experience, but hopefully it'll help some people. :)

PMC3 requires very simple tools.

For shaping the clay, I have:

• Two equal stacks of cards taped to a vinyl lined surface. Any clean desk will do.
• A toy rolling pin. You can use any round object, like a thick marker even.
• Some small flat object for rolling the clay, like some clear plastic.
• Two small dishes of liquids--one with water, one with a tiny bit of olive oil.
• Clean paper.
• An X-Acto knife and/or thick needle to cut and carve your piece.
• Round tubing that fits your ring size + some, if you are making a ring. This can be a wooden dowel, copper tubing, a pencil, anything that is thick enough.

Here's 10g of the clay. After firing it becomes 9g worth of silver. There is about a 10% shrinkage after firing. So you'll have to do some math if you are making things to size, like rings. Divide your desired ring diameter (in mm or inches) by .90 to get the final diameter for the clay ring.

Moisten your hands, work surface, and tools with a tiny bit of olive oil. You really only need a TINY bit, unless it is super humid where you are maybe. Use the flat object to roll your clay until it is long and skinny.

Place your skinny clay between the two taped layers of cards. Use your rolling pin to flatten the clay to the height of the cards. The spacing between the cards help determine the width of your ring. If clay gets a little dry, dab a drop of water on its surface. The clay becomes very sticky when it gets wet, so let the water absorb for a minute before playing with it again. If clay rolls over the top of the card, that's fine, you can trim it later.

Wrap your tubing with a sheet of paper. If you couldn't find a tube that was your size, you can use more paper to create extra padding to make it thicker. If your tubing is just right, then use a small sheet so it won't bulk it up. You can tape it close, but don't tape it to the tubing.

Here I've wrapped the flattened long piece of clay around the paper-covered tubing. I cut off the extra bits at the end, allowing small amount of overlap. I wet the ends and stick them to each other and smooth it out. Make sure you "glue" and smooth the ends together well or you will create a weak point in the ring. Use the X-Acto knife to trim off the sides and make them smooth. And/or cut it into a shape you want and add some carvings onto the surface with the pin tool. Working on the tape dispenser helped a lot to keep the ring off the surface. All the remaining bits of clay can be salvaged and turned into a slip (like a clay "glue") by storing it in a little container, like a film can, and adding a little bit of water to it. Or you can try to wet it and lump it back into a ball with the remainder. Put it back into the packaging to reseal.

Here I am trying to speed up the drying with a hairdryer. I am impatient like that. I dried it on Low setting for about 20-25 minutes.

Here are some tools I also used after drying and after firing:

• Nail filers are GREAT. You can easily find very fine grits of nail filers. And the ones with the polishing side are especially useful. Just grab a punch at the 99cent store or Target and you're mostly set. The metal one is good for slightly more heavy duty sanding.
• Sandpaper for more coarse sanding, if necessary, and to sand the inside of the ring. 400 and 600 grits work well.
• A metal brush for quick polishing after firing. It gets into the holes and cracks where sandpaper can't. You can find this at Home Depot, may take a bit of hunting. This was in the paint removal section, I think.
• The paint dipping stick wasn't really useful. I was going to wrap sandpaper around it. Totally optional, but FREE.
  

• And the most important tool of all, the torch! Mine is Cheflamme. ::rolls mustache:: They're pretty easy to find at kitchen or home decor stores.

When it dried, I used the sandpaper and the nailfilers to smooth down my piece. I used the metal nailfiler to create a beveled look to the edges. It's hard to see in these pre-fired pictures though. I also etched my initials on the inside with the pin tool.

Let's get dangerous...! Not really. I laid my ring on this metal grill thingy, and laid it on top of an iron pan. It's not really recommended. You should try to use something more stable. You can lay your piece on the pan directly, but the pan might get burnt. Torches can get VERY hot. It made a black burnt mark on my iron pan and started smoking when I didn't lift the ring up with the grill. So it's best if you work outside with the pan or whatnot on the cement ground just in case. Don't use your metal pots and pans, those might get burnt too. If you have a heavy ceramic pot, that might work. I'm not guaranteeing anything though. My setup was okay, you only have to fire PMC3 for about 3-4 minutes for that size project. So it didn't do any damage. The iron pan was not used for cooking anyway.

Set your torch to medium-ish flames. Fire your piece about midway into the flames. Don't get too close, it'll be too hot and melt your piece. Don't stay too far away and into the reddish flame area, that's not hot enough.

Your piece will start BURNING up in flames very quickly as the non-silver clay particles get burned away. That's a good sign. Then your piece will start glowing red, if you are in dim lighting you can see it well. Keep firing for another 3 minutes or so, keeping the whole piece equally heated by moving your torch around.

Here is the fired piece. You can pick it up with some tweezers and drench it in water to cool it down. Or wait for it to cool for 30 minutes. DON'T TOUCH it right away for ANY reason! I only accidentally nudged against the grill afterward with my arm, and it burnt a semi-permanent red tattoo into my skin...

Doesn't look like much, but you'll be able to tell that it's smaller, and it's more white in color.>

Here's the fun part! Take your metal brush, and start brushing! It's so amazing when that silver starts shining through, and you realize you don't have this brittle piece of clay anymore, but a piece of metal in your hands.

My finished ring! I sanded the main surface with some 600 grit sandpaper/filer in one linear motion, so that it looked like brush metal. I sanded and polished the beveled edges so it looked all shiny. I was so happy with the results!

Here's a second ring I did, shortly after the first. Can you tell? It's birdies flying over clouds.

This time, I did it in two steps. I made the inner layer of the ring first. I joined the ends on the tubing. Then I made an outer layer, cut out the cloud shapes with the pin tool, and "glued" it onto the first layer with water. As it was drying, I carved the birdies with the pin tool.

The features didn't show up so well on this ring, and I had wanted to try using liver of sulphur to blacken silver. So I tried it out. You dissolve a tiny clump of liver of sulphur in hot water. Then you dip your ring in until it turns black. Take it out and rinse it in clean water. Your whole ring is black, so you sand and polish off the parts you want shiny again. Pretty easy.

This was so easy! I had such a great time doing it. I immediately ordered more after I was done with the 9g. I'm sure most people can make a decent ring with the 7 or 9g packages.

The place I found to be cheapest was online at Whole Lotta Whimsy. But, I recommend you do your research too if you want some. Note though: WLW charges shipping AFTER you order (but at a reasonable rate), so your total online is not the final amount. The prices go up and down with the silver market, so you may not always get the same deal.

This was a very lengthy walkthrough/tutorial. I hope this helps out those who are starting out!