You will be able to tell how new I am to the craft by my question! I successfully set my Aquamarine cabachon into my bezel and am now wishing that I had oxidized the silver. I think that I can paint the Vigor oxidizer onto the silver and polish etc. Will the Vigor hurt my stone? Can you put an Aquamarine or for that matter any stones into pickle? Thanks for any advice.

 I don't know what Vigor oxidizer is - a commercial product I'm guessing, you can paint it on your piece - since your stone is translucent I would keep the oxidizer from seeping into the bezel.

 As far as stones and pickle - I'm wondering if there is a disconnect b/w what you're typing and what you mean - pickle is to clean up after soldering.  Once your stone is set, you should be completely done soldering and using pickle - in fact, you should be done with everything except one final polish around the stone.
 

hi, thanks for responding. You are of course correct that I should be done with the pickle. Unfortunately I got carried away and set my stone before I soldered my bail to the piece. Sounds like I should clean up by hand after I do this, not use the pickle. I should be able to avoid the oxidizer seeping into the bezel as it is on another level from where I want to darken the silver. I did go back and read my McCreight books again and he says no stones in the pickle at all. Vigor is a commercial product that I purchased. I do not like the lack of control that it gives compared to the liver solution that my teacher has. Forging ahead! :-)

 If it were me, I'd take the stone out before proceeding to solder on the bail.   If you're careful, you should be able to use the same bezel to (re)set your stone.  The worst that could happen is you need to saw/file  off the old bezel and solder on a new one - conversely, if you heat your stone you may end up with a setting and no stone. 

 
Would your design allow you to use a cold connection rather than using heat? 

What is your experience using heat shield clay products that protect stones from the soldering flame? Cold connection not a great option for this design, darn. The bail is not large and not too near the stone, I can use easy solder. Think it's worth risking?

I have had no luck with heat shields I've burnt, singed, cracked, toasted more peridot, turquoise and rubies than I can count.  The next time I heat near a stone, I'll be using high karat gold, a teeny, tiny hot flame and some wet material to shield the stone.

I really wouldn't risk the stone, unless you're really ok with just doing it to learn.  Which isn't so bad after all experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted (awesome quote - not mine).
 

well, not willing to risk the stone so off with it's head! thanks for your advice, very helpful. happy new years.

 Depending on the bezel wire you may be able to use an exacto knife and carefully try to loosen the bezel by running the blade between the stone and the metal.  Take your time, don't rush it.  I don't use commercial bezel wire anymore, but when I did I could get stones out using the exacto knife and re-use the bezel.  Good luck! kh