Tungsten Carbide Jewelry

Hello!

I haven''t heard of jewellery in tungsten carbide before - but it looks like an interesting alrernative to titanium.. particularly for men''s jewellery.

It looks very nice indeed for the price.

Are you buying some?

x x x

From what I have gathered they are really solid/hard metal (thats good) less wear and scratching.

Major down side is
I hear the ring metal is so hard that if you had a problem where they would have to cut the ring off....(say you smash it in a machine??)  Most ER''s / Hospitals dont have the tools to cut them off.

They can''t be cut off, but you crack them off with pliers.

http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/about-tungsten.html (towards the bottom)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten_carbide (under Domestic heading)

Another nice thing about tungsten carbide is that they''re heavy. Unlike titanium, the biggest complaint I hear about titanium is that it feels "cheap" due to weight. WC (tungsten carbide) is also very hard as someone else mentioned, with a hardness of 8.5-9. That''s almost equivalent to sapphire which is remarkable for a metal.

Fun fact: Did you know pure tungsten is almost the same weight as pure gold? Some have said it would be very easy to make fake gold bars with a tungsten core with say 10mm of solid gold on the outside.... It would pass most xray tests, weight tests and density tests if you alloyed the tungsten core slightly to make it equal in weight to gold because it''s very close. You''d have to drill the bars to make sure they were solid gold. :)

By the way, I once witnessed a WC ring cut off a man''s finger, he was in some pain during the process, not because he was being cut. But because the benchman basically had to wedge a somewhat think piece of steel between his ring and finger, then used his rotary wheel to cut into the ring with the metal that was wedged to act as a gaurd to make sure he didn''t cut into the guys finger. And because it was a different metal the benchman was able to tell when he cut through the WC ring from the sound or feel of the wheel or something. So they can be cut off, but it''s not fun/easy.

I''m told if that doesn''t work (like if they can''t wedge metal in between the ring and the finger) they basically do the same thing, cutting into several parts of the ring to weaken it but they obviously can''t cut all the way through, so then then try to crack it off.

Date: 8/15/2008 2:41:35 AM
Author: Yosef
Another nice thing about tungsten carbide is that they''re heavy. Unlike titanium, the biggest complaint I hear about titanium is that it feels ''cheap'' due to weight. WC (tungsten carbide) is also very hard as someone else mentioned, with a hardness of 8.5-9. That''s almost equivalent to sapphire which is remarkable for a metal.

Fun fact: Did you know pure tungsten is almost the same weight as pure gold? Some have said it would be very easy to make fake gold bars with a tungsten core with say 10mm of solid gold on the outside.... It would pass most xray tests, weight tests and density tests if you alloyed the tungsten core slightly to make it equal in weight to gold because it''s very close. You''d have to drill the bars to make sure they were solid gold. :)

Yosef, you''re giving me ideas... you want to scam a bank for a few million together? ;)

*JOKE!*

x x x

A good friend of mine bought a no brand name tungsten ring a few months ago on ebay as a gift to her bf, the engraving on the ring worn out after only a few days. Then she bought him a gorgeous tungsten carbide ring,

http://www.justmetal.com/ArtCarved-GRECIAN-Tungsten-Carbide-6mm-Celtic-Knot-Ring-P77.aspx

and it still look brand new after a few months. The ring has some weight to it that doesn''t give you the ''cheap'' feeling.

Zeiss.

My husband has a tungsten band and loves it. Here is is, (on the bottom). He''s had it for 2 years and it looks just as good as the day we bought it.

I have a tungsten band to wear when I''m doing active things like camping, surfing, etc. I wore it all over Europe last summer, and put it through lots of abuse. It still looked good as new when I lost it while kayaking in La Jolla a few months ago. Since it was only $35 on ebay it wasn''t much of a loss, and I bought another one to replace it (in a smaller size). My 6mm band weighed just as much as my regular platinum e-ring and w-band combined, so it is very heavy.

I have had this ring:
http://www.justmetal.com/ArtCarved-AURORA-Tungsten-Carbide-6mm-Dual-Finish-Ring-P73.aspx
for almost 2 and a half years and it looks the same today as it did when I got it. I'm probably not tremendously hard on it, but I am by no means easy on it either. Overall, I have been very happy with it. I also agree with one of the other comments about the weight. I think it just feels better having some weight to it than the very light titanium rings.

I plan on getting my man a tungsten carbide wedding band. I love the dark color and the fact that it''s practically indestructable!

DH''s first wedding band was titanium.  it scratched like crazy, and looked awful after about 6 months (early last year).  he ended up losing a lot of weight and it literally fell off his hand while we were dancing at a wedding this past spring.

his replacement was a tungsten band. granted, it''s only been 4 months, but looks as good as new! 

both rings were purchased from eweddingbands.com 

Date: 8/15/2008 3:54:16 AM
Author: Cleo

Yosef, you''re giving me ideas... you want to scam a bank for a few million together? ;)


*JOKE!*


x x x

No that''s not right, those poor banks are so broke as it is. But I did read about the tungsten/gold bar idea from a trade magazine once where a metallurgist was asked to come up with a good way of tricking banks into accepting fake gold bars, this was for a movie he was doing consultation work on. And that was his idea. Even though the outside of the bar would be solid gold and the bars would be about 10-12% gold still, they''d make out with a 88-90% profit :) I wonder if it was ever used in a movie and if so which one? Ah well.

To add to other comments, tungsten carbide rings have heft, which give most people a sense of value and it does not scratch. Due to tungsten rings being relatively new to the market the price differences are considerable. Just be sure to buy a tungsten carbide ring that does not use cobalt as the binding element. This can break the ring. A quality tungsten jeweler uses nickel as the binder.

i read on some articles before that these metals are hard...
so hard that in the event of an emergency, whereby paramedics need to cut your ring to save you..
it is pretty difficult to cut a tungsten carbide ring

Date: 8/15/2008 2:47:15 PM
Author: jstarfireb
I plan on getting my man a tungsten carbide wedding band. I love the dark color and the fact that it''s practically indestructable!

While Tungsten is highly scratch proof, is resistant to chemicals, has a beautiful color and is very heavy it does have a draw back that hasnt been mentioned...it can break or chipped if dropped on a hard surface...not common for this to happen, but enough that its needs to be mentioned when discussing its pros and cons....so unfortunatly its not indestructable.