I have a fun little sunface pin/pendant with little dangles that end with a bezel that holds a small piece of coral. It seems like the stones were secure in the bezels but I caught the edge of one of the corals on some thread inside my clothing and it pulled loose. Luckily I found the piece of coral several hours later (when my son noticed the piece missing and I remembered getting hung up when I was dressing). Anyway, is this something an amateur with the proper glue could fix. Please see the photos of the bezel with missing stone, a photo of what the stones look like in the bezel, and the stone itself (which looks intact and still has the glue on it). Also do you think that I should be worried about the other stones coming loose?
Put the stone back in and with a popsicle stick, toothbrush handle push the bezel over the stone. Typically I would start at the point, but start at the rounded end, do a little, go to the sides, do a little keep going around the bezel until it’s pushed in and down over the stone. The hard part will be holding that piece in place while pushing the bezel over.
I just reread your post - it was glued in? If so, chip carefully off the old glue and re-glue.
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what is the best type of glue to use?
Ideally the stone should be held in with the bezel, not glue. It’s hard to tell from your photo, but do I see a little circle of glue inside the setting of the missing stone where it was previously glued? That and the domed, glossy appearance of the inlay (possibly block) makes me wonder if this is really Zuni work.
The back is stamped W C N in the same manner as work by Wilson and Carolyn Niiha. There are a few other sunface works that show the back of the work and the hallmarks are quite similar. So I don’t have any reason to believe it is not their work. Yes there is definitely glue holding the stone in place. I can test the stone but really my question is about what is the best glue to put it back together with.
I use either GS Hypo Cement or E6000 Jewelry and Bead glue.
The GS comes with a precision tip.
Some packages of the E6000 come with several interchangeable tips.
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I believe they use epoxy when they glue stones for inlay. However, as a bezel set stone, this should be held in by the bezel itself, even if glue was also used. So I would not simply re-glue it but have it glued AND close the bezel around it, or send it to a qualified jeweler if you don’t feel comfortable doing this yourself. Hopefully even though the stone was glued in originally the bezel was also used to hold the stone in place; if not, the others could also be at risk of falling out.
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