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Sometimes depending on the type of stone and the type of bezel that we are using you can
actually use a burnish punch or a setting punch like these which have a cup shaped interior
and are nice and smooth and you will put it over the bezel and use a hammer to set the
stone. This works well with smaller faceted stones and in situations where you are going
to need to set a lot of bezel set stones but it definitely doesn't give you the really
delicate feel that you have by hand setting it and it definitely doesn't work for irregularly
shaped stones. One of the other important things that you need to remember when using
these is to make sure that your bezels have space around them for the edge of the burnish
punch to actually slide around when you hit it and then probably the last and most important
thing is to make sure that your setting is somewhere that is extremely solid because
otherwise every time you hit it it is just going to bounce so it is important especially
when using these to make sure that your stone is perfectly sited in the setting because
once you hit it chances are that it will stay right where you put it so you'll want to use
a nice firm hit with a hammer such as a chasing hammer like this one and preferably if your
setting can be setting on a metal surface or very firmly locked in a heavy vice you
will get the best results.