What does The Painted Pony recommend for which type of crystal application to use?
Assuming you are having a rail shirt made, unless you are extremely hard on your clothing, heat-set crystals are fine and durable and are what I recommend for most people. If you are paying for a timeless, very expensive piece of clothing (such as a showmanship shirt with a lot of appliques, primarily leather and lots and lots of crystals) that you plan to keep in your wardrobe a long time, I would then recommend rim-set crystals. Be sure to consider this – in the unlikely chance you lose a crystal, it will be much easier for you to replace the crystal on your own if they are heat-set. If you have a shirt that loses a rim-set crystal, you need a rim-setter to reset the crystal. Most people don’t own one!
