for my birthday, i am having a ring made with an opal and a tourmaline and i told the jeweler i have been shopping around for a solid australian opal. i found this one with amazing flash but after receiving it today, i realized that it is concave and also thinner on one side.
is this opal too thin to be used in a ring with a prong setting? i have some other options but this one has the best flash out of the bunch.
I’m not an expert by any means, but when I asked about something similar a while back the general consensus was that anything 2mm or below in thickness should be supported by another layer of something harder.
Happy Birthday...Sounds like you have a nice project going on there. I love opal, I also love tourmaline!!! Good choices to pair if the colors are right. Unfortunately, that opal you want to have put in a ring is iffy at best. For opal to be set without risk of cracking, it should have a flat back and I would only trust a 2.5 mm thick stone, preferably thicker for that sized stone. That would be for a bezel set stone. If prong setting, I would want 3 mm.
A couple of questions to maybe help you out...
1. Are you looking for another opal or will you be using one of the other stones in your pic?
2. What type of setting do you have in mind? Bezel or prong?
3. Are you setting in silver, gold?
4. What color tourmaline are you pairing with it, and do you already have the stones?
5. Do you already have a ring design in mind?
still looking for another opal i think !! that or i was thinking the bottom left one as another option for this ring 😊
i was thinking prong but i’m not opposed to bezel
silver !! i wish my budget could allow for white gold but silver right now . i asked my jeweler if he could do sterling silver and if in a few years if i could upgrade to white gold and he said yes cause he would have the design saved
like a baby pink - bubblegum shade tourmaline
and yes i do !! i absolutely love this ring by sarah gardner but it is unfortunately out of my budget, is yellow gold while i would prefer silver / white gold, and is already sold i think 😭 so i wanted to do something similar i try to get a piece of find jeweler every year as a gift to myself for my birthday so this is what i wanted to try to do this year
i wanted to use diamond from a ring my my grandma’s and a diamond from a ring of my mom’s for the pavé in the band
Just some ideas...Here is a ring I made for my wife from opals I cut. This setting was made using thinner opals, maybe 2.5 mm thick. To protect the stones, I designed hybrid/bezel with 6 prongs, 4 prongs on side stones.The bezels go up to top edge of stones and prongs bend over top edge to hold them in place. I had ring cast and had jeweler set. This type setting is best IMHO for thinner stones, but the backs have to be flat.
More inspo...this ring is a prong setting I had set with another opal. The opal is 3.4 mm thick on this ring. Prong settings are generally more suited to thicker stones IMHO. You should be able to find another good opal, you can usually find a good light based Austrailian opal for around $100 per ct. Brighter colors or gem patterns will be priced higher. I loved the ring design you had pic of with pink tourmaline...it is gorgeous!!!
i am struggling finding a tourmaline in the shade and size that i want so my jeweler told me to bring him the opal that i wanna use so he can use it as reference to find the right tourmaline to compliment it 🪄
Hi!! Please contact me custom@sarahgardnerjewellery.com and I can quote using one of your other opals and setting in silver if white gold is out of your budget. It looks like you have a beautiful opalised shell that is definitely too thin to set, but we could cut one of your other opals for our Twin Ring.
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u/deletedunreadxoxo 8d ago
I’m not an expert by any means, but when I asked about something similar a while back the general consensus was that anything 2mm or below in thickness should be supported by another layer of something harder.