Customer came to me with this lovely ring with a raw citrine crystal. The crystal had fallen out and luckily they found it. They asked me to re-set it and make it more secure. I decided to both glue it and re-set the claws and I lengthened one of the claws. The customer did not want me to hide the point and I was fortunate that there was a step under the point to grip on. So I lengthened the claw to grip this step but not enough to cover the point. You can see this in the main picture. The art of glueing is that I work with a magnifying headset and a tiny needle to apply the glue. The more glue you use, the better it holds, but if you use too much, it squeezes out and can be seen (which looks ugly), so precision is required. I find that it's better if I set the claws while the glue is soft because the claw setting can shift the stone and weaken the glue join. The challenge is that setting the claws while the glue is wet increases the chance that you'll squeeze some glue out and make a mess, so it has to be done very carefully. What do you think of the result? The customer was very happy.
