Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Splendid Variety of Tungsten Wedding Rings

By Kelley Lucas


While we do not recommend intentionally trying to damage your ring, tungsten carbide can endure a lot of abuse. Tungsten carbide rings are an 8.5-9.5 on the mohs scale. This means that the only way to scratch a tungsten carbide ring is to polish the ring with carborundum or grind it with a diamond grade abrasive.

For creating stunning rings, tungsten is forged into incredibly strong and durable alloys like carbon and later combined with nickel. Even though pure tungsten is prone to scratches and other similar damages to other metals, tungsten carbide is four times harder than titanium and nearly ten times harder than eighteen carat gold. Thus tungsten can be considered as the hardest metal used for commercial jewelry. For couples who are involved with physical activities that may nick or damage soft metals, tungsten wedding bands would be the safest choice. The polish of the ring is often considered permanent and will not wear off due to the metal's strength.

If you are curious try rubbing your tungsten ring on a file, if it scratches it is not tungsten carbide, if it does not scratch, it is tungsten carbide. Our rings will not scratch. Titanium rings look great new, and usually are less expensive. It is very common for people to mistakenly believe that the two metals are either the same thing or equal.

3. Hypoallergenic This is the very same concern as buying silver jewelry to some people: Will I be allergic to the jewelry? In general, titanium jewelry is virtually safe to wear for everybody. Yet, some tungsten carbide jewelry contains the element cobalt that some people are allergic to. Interesting, another form of tungsten alloy using nickel as a binder metal is hypoallergenic, even to people who are allergic to nickel.

Only when tungsten is combined with a carbon alloy is it transformed into tungsten carbide, the strongest of all metals. Tungsten carbide is also a heavier metal than titanium which is very lightweight, making it more durable and better looking. Titanium rings look great new, and usually are less expensive.




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