I have a Tungsten Wedding band, specifically this one:
It was more expensive in 2003 than other Tungsten rings are now (by about three times), but Trent West was one of the first designers that had rings available. They needed to laser-engrave our initials in it at the factory. Keep in mind that they can’t be resized, but some manufacturers will do it for you once for free. Also, some will replace your rings for free if they need to be cut off in a medical emergency.
I get a lot of compliments on the ring, as many from men as women. They stay shiny, and they are very heavy, which amazes people who I’ve shown it to. You can get it with Gold or Platinum inlays, but I like the plain one. It’s a way to get a little shine but stay very, very masculine.
I can kind of see the “logic” of the alloy names varying from industry, since it’s unlikely that there’d be times when they’d interact with one another, but the lack of an international standard really puzzles me. At work, we frequently have to get our material from different countries since there won’t be enough available from one supplier to enable us to meet our ship dates. Were those standards to be different, we’d be screwed, since we could never be certain of what we were getting.
Making a new standard is this huge bureaucratic nightmare, and you have to obtain participation and buy-in from the majority of suppliers and end users in order to make it stick. For tungsten, which is used in a very limited and highly diverse array of applications, it probably just isn’t worth the effort.
IIRC most of the metals in tungsten’s family tend to brittleness. How they make bulb filaments I don’t know, but then Edison was able to make one from carbon so there you are. One thing about tungsten that might give it an edge over titanium is that it’s very heavy, while titanium is light, thereby agreeing with the vague notion that precious metals should be heavy, like gold or platinum. I don’t think tungsten can be considered precious though by any stretch, not even to the extent of silver let alone gold or platinum.
No, I got a 9 1/2, and it has worked just fine. Get it sized correctly, because you’re not going to be able to change it. Since I got it engraved at the factory, my ring size was probably picked off a shelf, lasered, then sent right to me (I don’t have any illusions that my ring was custom-made).
Expect that it will be tight in summer and after long walks, when your hands swell. It will also be loose in cold weather. If you size it correctly, so that it fits perfectly over your knuckle, your finger will accomodate it eventually (that big indentation that us married people get).
I can wear a 6.5 to a 7.5. I figured I’d split the difference and go for the 7.
Spectre, I am under no illusions that tungsten is precious or semi-precious. One of the lovely jewelers we talked to took great pains to point this out to me, and that tungsten was more suitable for a machine shop than a jewelry store.
Is it so hard to imagine that people would like the symbolism of the hardest metal, that never loses its shine and polish, that never bends out of true? I mean, if diamonds’ claim to fame is its toughness, why not tungsten? Oh yeah, because it doesn’t cost a fortune.
My husband and I were shopping for a replacement wedding band for him (since he was a doofus and lost his original band somewhere in our house) and all the jewelers we went to had tungsten bands and a couple of them tried hard to sell us one. (Turns out he settled on a really very attractive stainless steel band, but the tungsten ones were in serious consideration.)
Probably because you were going for stainless, and that’s even LESS expensive than tungsten, so they were trying to get you to move up the price scale. With us, they wanted us to get gold, which was the next step, or platinum, which looks like tungsten but costs 10x more and it’s as tough.
Platinum rings are not all that great, IMHO. It looks FANTASTIC when it’s new, but will quickly dull to a matte finish. It can be polished again, but the tungsten ring will always stay shiny. I think platinum has its place when set with diamonds (colorless is best) but for a men’s ring I think nothing is as manly as tungsten.
IIRC, the correct name for the machine is a “draw puller.” Basically, they take a hunk of metal and stretch it until it becomes a wire. There’s probably some extrusion process used now as well, and they might use a variation of a rolling mill as well, now that I think about it.
Someone mentioned that the engraving will never wear down and that the metal is near scratch proof. Does this mean there would be no problem in having the exterior engraved rather than the interior?
Yes, you can get engraving on the outside for a tungsten ring, and it will not be obliterated over time due to the metal’s durability. As a few people mentioned, finishes (whether brushed or glossy) are also maintained at a level superior to other metals popular in jewelry making.
How odd! It’s definitely showing the British ‘pounds’ symbol for me when I go there.
I wonder if it automatically does that to all non-US visitors? Most inconvenient, at any rate, because although I’m very used to converting to US dollars, I’ve got no idea what the going rate is for pounds.
Anyway, maybe I’ll chase 'em up when I hit the States late this year, because I think the rings look awesome and I’d like to get one!
