Tungsten rings?

Cafe Society
1

Does anyone have a ring, wedding or otherwise, made of tungsten? I’m looking at them and they seem to be very attractive. Tungsten carbide is about a 9 on the Mohs Hardness Scale, so these rings won’t bend or scuff, apparently. They can be polished to a mirror shine, which looks cool. They are also quite economical compared to platinum.

What is the down side to these rings? Do they really stay as beautifully shiny and round as they are when you get them? Why are they less popular than titanium? Is there anything special to know when picking one? I know you’re supposed to get tungsten carbide, not an alloy with nickel or cobalt.

(Hope this is in the right forum… might be an IMO, but it is about jewelry, so if it needs to be moved, that’s cool)

2

I wear a 7mm tunsten band on my left fore finger. It was polished to a mirror finish when i bought it, and it looks just as good after a year of construction work. THe downside is that an emergency room will be unable to cut it off if I am ever in an accident and injure that finger.

I have another tungsten ring on order to replace my wedding band, which has not proved as durable.

3

Tell me more! Where did you get it, at a jewelry store or online? Is it comfortable?

I’m very curious as to why these rings are less popular than titanium, when they are harder and just as shiny (not to mention my utter bemusement at the continued popularity of gold and diamonds, which I find unattractive and overrated).

Is this really true? I’ve heard that tungsten is brittle and can be broke in a vise grips. One of the websites I looked at said that ER’s are equipped to remove tungsten and titanium rings in case of emergency. Can find the site if you want it.

4

The reason they’re not as popular as titanium is that tungsten isn’t as sexy as titantium. Titanium is used in jet planes, spaceships, and cutting edge stuff. Tungsten? Lightbulb filaments, armor piercing shells, and machine tools. Another material that’d make excellent rings, but no one seems to use is monel.

I’ve never heard of tungsten being so brittle that you could shatter it with vise grips, but I suppose it is possible, depending upon the alloy. The tungsten alloys I’ve played with have been well-nigh industructible. I’ve got a bunch of machine tools with tungsten inserts that have been exposed to all kinds of nasty chemicals and temperature swings, but none of them have lost their shine, so I wouldn’t worry about it losing it’s polish. (Properly worked, you can get a very lovely blue color out of the stuff as well.)

5

I’m glad that’s the only reason. I was wondering if there was a problem that I wasn’t hearing about because all the websites that discuss tungsten rings are trying to sell them.

This site says the ring would shatter rather than bend (scroll down to where it says “Can a Tungsten ring be cut off?”) and can be broken with vise-grip pliers. This site says the same. This site says that some rings are “too hard” and can shatter if dropped, which would not be good, as I am hard on my jewelry. How to know which are too hard?

This first site also says that nickel-binder alloys are superior, but this site says nickel alloys break too easily. So which to get?

Why are some of the rings I see online so cheap? Is it an issue with what alloys are used?

6

We have been looking at tungsten rings for a while now. We’d both like to replace our original wedding rings with a matched set. We like the look and durability of them, and I like the fact that engravings don’t wear down.

From a FAQ on a popular tungsten ring site:

A jeweler I like and trust says that reputable sellers usually provide a lifetime warranty against breakage. I am waiting to get our set through him, which might take another half-year or so because locally there are a lot of choices for male tungsten rings, the lack of demand for female ones makes for pretty slim pickings.

From what I recall cruising sites, the cheaper rings have the more brittle mix of tungsten carbide and thus are less likely to be durable.

7

I have a tungsten carbide wedding ring and I really like it. I had never really worn jewelry of any type, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but I checked out other guys rings to see how they held up before I decided on TC. White gold and platinum looked good, but seemed to get pretty scratched up and dull, plus were comparatively expensive (I would feel silly wearing a pricey ring). Titanium rings looked good, were extremely lightweight, were inexpensive, and had a certain coolness factor (I even read that some titanium rings were made from Russian subs). I really liked that you could wear it and could not even feel it on your finger. However, they too got scratched and banged up on guys that have had them for a while.

I ended up getting a comfort fit TC ring with a brushed finish in the middle with polished edges. It looks very cool- like a gun or engine part. I like the fact that I can’t scratch it, no matter what I do. When I first got it, I used to like to gouge things with it (Uh, sorry bro, but I just scraped a layer of rust and paint off of your iron railing with my kick ass TC ring , I’ll help you sand and repaint it if tomorrow you want- I’ll bring my ring to get the stubborn spots). It gets smudged like any other metal, but using a brush and soapy water gets it looking like new if you want. I think that the metal has a coolness factor to it- guys are familiar with the tough rep (c’mon, it’s used for industrial drill bits!). The only downside for me is that it is heavy and I do notice that I am wearing it sometimes. If you are throwing a football and your hand is wet- watch out- it can work it’s way down your finger.

8

Well, if you’re married to a machinist, you might have to worry about him making off with your ring in the middle of the night because he just has to get this part finished and all the tooling supply stores are closed. :wink:

I don’t have access to my books with the relevant information at the moment, so I’ve asked at the machinist board I frequent and will post any information I get. If they tell you that the alloy is M2, I’d not worry about it breaking. I’ve worked with that stuff and it easily withstood the abuse I put it through, and trust me, I abused it waaaaay more than a ring would see in a lifetime.

Good question. I’ve asked about this at the machinist site as well. I know that the Chinese sometimes dump metal on the market (titanium crowbars made in China were cheaper than the raw titanium stock the last time I checked) and it’s possible that’s why. Still, I’d be wary of the $50 ones. That strikes me as much too low of a price.

9

So I should ask the jeweler which alloy it is? Is M2 jewelry grade?

Will jewelers know and tell me if they use cobalt or nickel in their rings? Did you know if nickel is bad or good to have in it? Is there a way to tell if it’s tungsten carbide, which is stronger, or regular tungsten, which isn’t?

Thanks for all this info.

10

Definately ask what alloy it is. I dunno if M2’s jewelry grade or not, but it might very well be, since it can be polished brightly.

A good jeweler will know what the alloy is and what that alloy’s composed of. If they don’t, then I wouldn’t buy from them. I don’t know of any easy way to tell the difference between tungsten carbide and pure tungsten. There’s probably some weight differences, but what they are, I can’t say.

11

Do you think a nickel alloy is a good idea or not? I have seen conflicting info on various websites.

12

I’d think that nickel would be a good alloy, but I’m no metallurgist. The things that I’ve machined out of nickel containing alloys have all been tough as all get out, not the least bit fragile, and had a good shine to them, even without polishing. The issue would be the ratio of materials involved. Too much tungsten and it’ll be brittle.

13

We went ring shopping yesterday and whoa! People who work in the jewelry stores were VERY down on tungsten. One guy said, “These rings are very dangerous. They might have to take your finger off in the ER if you get injured. Tungsten can’t be cut off, you know.” Which is just not true-- any ER is equipped to remove a tungsten ring. Another woman said, “Tungsten carbide is more Lowe’s than Van Cott’s.” Ouch!

We wondered if they thought we were cheap and that’s why they were so snotty. We looked at platinum too, just for comparison’s sake. $2500 bands v. $250, and we STILL liked the tungsten better. What a scam.

I guess we’re going to order on the internet, because we can get them engraved and get the styles we want, not the three standard ones they carry in the stores.

14

Which internet location you’re going to settle on to buy them?

15

Make that “At which internet location are you going to settle…”

I’m just on something today it seems.

16

We want them engraved, which apparently is quite a trial with tungsten and not everyone does it. None of the jewelry stores we went to in person would do it (as I said, they were very unenthused about selling us tungsten), so we looked for sites that included that. We also wanted to go with a reputable dealer who will be around if something goes wrong (like the ring shatters or something). Here are two sites we are considering:

Daniel’s Jeweler

Tungsten Pride

If anyone happens to know anything about these sellers, lemme know.

We want the 9mm width for both of us. It’s thick as hell but quite impresive-looking. The polish level looks very cool, and the concave design is more jewelry-style than some of the grooved designs, which are more casual.

If we had any doubts that we wanted tungsten this demo put us over the edge. Cool! Take that, platinum!

17

Heh, I feel your pain, Ruby. Over at the machinist site, they’re busy arguing about how dangerous the stuff may or may not be. The short answer is: You might experience a slight skin reaction to either the nickel or the cobalt in the ring. No danger of your finger rotting off, or anything like that. There is however, the slight possibility that you could experience a toxic reaction to the cobalt, but the conditions necessary for that to happen are such that you’re going to have more pressing problems to worry about, namely stopping the bleeding because your hand (or finger) has been ripped off and put into some kind of industrial grinder type thingie that’s caused the particles of your former ring to become airborne.

If you, or your squeeze, are going to have your mitts around any kind of automated equipment, then I’d strongly advise removing the ring first (which you should do anyway no matter what it’s made of) so it doesn’t get caught. Also, if you’re playing around with high voltages you should, as a standard safety precaution, remove it and any other metal jewelry you may have on your hands. Some machinists I know refuse to wear even a watch because they’re so paranoid that it could get caught in something.

I did dig through my books at work to see what they said. Surprisingly, I discovered that there’s no universal standard for indicating alloy type. (Gee, guys, you’d think that it was the 18th Century or something.) Meaning that the alloy names given in my books wouldn’t necessarily correspond to those used by jewelers and they can even vary from country to country. :rolleyes:

None of the alloys mentioned in my books contained nickel, so I can’t give you a definitive answer on that, but, again, I can’t imagine that nickel would make the stuff weaker. Add it to steel, and you get stainless steel, the more nickel you add, the harder the stuff gets. Add it to copper, and you get Monel (or Inconel, basically the same thing), again, the higher the nickel content, the harder the stuff is.

Frankly, I don’t think you have much to worry about with the stuff shattering (assuming it is what they say it is) no matter what it’s made of. The weakest alloy that my books mentioned was K-01, which is 97% tungsten carbide and 3% cobalt, the rupture strength is 245,000 PSI! The strongest alloy was K-40, it was 88% tungsten carbide and 12% cobalt, it’s rupture strength is 400,000 PSI. I can’t even think of anything we make at work with that kind of strength and we make fasteners for military aircraft.

In looking over the two sites you linked to, I’d go with Tungsten Pride, simply because they give a little more detail about their process than the other one. What you could do is get the cheapest thing from both of them, beat the hell out of it, and see what the result is. Whichever one looks the best is the company you go with. You might check to see if there’s anything on epinion (assuming they’re still around) about either of the site.

Oh, and that video is not really all that impressive, IMHO. Tungsten carbine is used in cutting tools, and if they’d have really wanted to show off, they could have taken that ring, put it in a lathe and used it to cut aluminum, and then put it back on the person’s finger!

18

What I don’t get is why, if Tungsten Pride are in the US, their prices seem to be in British pounds?

They have the nicest stuff though. I love the ‘black ice’ finish.

19

The tungsten carbide rings aren’t alloyed with cobalt. Some are alloyed with nickel to make it stronger. I don’t think allergic reactions are commo with these rings.

The Tungsten Pride site shows the prices in US dollars when I look at it. :confused: We will buy from them if they have an 8 or 9 mm rings. Still waiting on an e-mail back from them.

20

Tungsten is used in limited and highly specialized commercial and aerospace applications; there’s really no impetus for a standard, given that each application demands a particular set of unique properties. In aerospace, tungsten is either used in the elemental state or as a heavy metal alloy (WHA) that are tuned to the paricular needs of the part–usually a high temperature or high density structural member or a kinetic energy penetrator. Other applications, such as welding electrodes,incandescent filaments, doped solid state crystals, et cetera, require other properties that are difficult to tabulate the way standard structural metals like steel, aluminum, and titanium are. I don’t think there are ASTM standard designations for basic refractory alloys, or at least none in common use.

Tungsten rings sound really cool, much more interesting that gold or platinum. Now I just have to find a woman who thinks so, or indeed, won’t stand me up on the first date. :dubious: Ah well, Ella is always willing to sing for me.

Stranger