Tungsten Carbide and/or Damascus rings?

jfindon

jfindon

Joined
Dec 12, 2006
Messages
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My mom is thinking of buying my dad a ring on the anniversary of their engagement and was looking at tungsten carbide because it's apparently extremely tough. She asked me how tough damascus was because I have some damascus knives/necklaces and she really likes the way they look, but I don't know a ton about how it would compare. From my 2 minutes of Googling I saw that you could get a tungsten carbide ring with a damascus portion, so it combined the two styles, but can anyone tell me how tough a damascus ring would be? Or suggest something different? Maybe some reputable places to buy such a thing?

I guess it would depend on which steels were used in the damascus.
 
A guy named J. Arthur Loose makes his own stainless damascus and makes rings lined with gold or sterling silver. They are quite striking. I don't really don't know anything about them except they look cool and I like going to his website once in a while to look at his cool knives.
 
I got really good service form ForeverMetals on my carbide ring, and they had lots of options. worth taking a look at least for a "damascus look" ring
 
I do a lot of metal detecting and find these at the beach all the time. They look cool but for the price you pay gold would be the way to go. Gold is always worth something tungsten not so much resale is pretty much 0 I am lucky to get $10 out of the ones I find but usually can't even sell them. Gold will always have value. Just a thought.

Jason
 
I replaced my beat-down gold wedding band with a tungsten band from Sam's Club. Only took 5 days to special order it and it cost $89.99. Quite the bullet-proof band for the money and the base cost of the ring includes engraving. You can order variants of color from bright silver, 2-tone polished/brushed or even graphite. They're comfort fit with eased/beveled edges that never dig into your skin when trying to take it back off. If there's a better value, more durable ring than this, then it's probably not located on this planet.:)
 
Tungsten can be removed more safely than steel. you can crack it with a pair of vice grips, just put it on the ring and lock it under minimal tension, then unlock, tighten a quarter turn and lock again, repeat until the ring cracks, and it should come off in a few pieces. I got tungsten for that reason and that I can replace it if I need to.
I've already lost one wedding ring. at the end of the day, its just stuff. besides if it was high dollar, I'd still never sell it, so no big loss to me. Just my .02
 
I think you answered your own question when you said it would depend on the steels used in the damascus. I think any steel would be more than tough enough for use as a ring, though.

I got a brushed/polished tungsten ring with a small diamond in it years ago for around $110. As advertised, it still looks like new. I had to put it to the test a few times scratching things with it (there's aridge between the brushed and polished parts) and once I thought I had scratched the brushed part. I thought that the ridges in the brushed finish were probably too fine to hold up to the steel that I had tried to (and succeeded) scratch with it. It turned out to be steel shavings from the cabinet in the brushed grooves and looked like new when I cleaned them out.

The only thing is they are heavy, and, as mentioned, will scratch/dent just about anything else if you're not careful- you will learn to be careful pretty quick. Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I showed her the Chris Ploof designs and she found a bunch she really liked. She liked the J. Arthur Loose rings too, and they were cheaper than the Chris Ploof ones, albeit a little plainer.

I'm not sure what type of steels Ploof uses, but Loose uses 304L and 316L stainless steel, no clue on toughness of those. I think she wants to go with damascus over the carbide though.
 
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