tungsten RSS

Locking pliers gripping a tungsten ring, demonstrating the emergency crack-and-remove method.Most of the time a stuck ring is a swelling problem, not a ring problem. Work through the gentle options first; the emergency method is genuinely a last resort and it destroys the ring.Everyday removal when a ring is tightFingers swell in heat, after salty food, after exercise, on flights, and late in the day. Try these in order: Cool the hand. Run cold water over it or hold something cold for a minute or two. Cold reduces swelling quickly. Elevate. Hold the hand above your heart for several minutes...

A cleanly cracked tungsten carbide band beside an intact polished band.Yes. A tungsten carbide ring can crack, and if you strike one hard enough on a concrete floor or a steel edge, it may break into clean pieces rather than dent. This surprises people who were told tungsten is the toughest ring material available. Both things are true at once, and understanding why will probably make you want the ring more, not less.Hardness and toughness are different propertiesHardness measures resistance to being scratched or deformed. Toughness measures resistance to cracking under sudden force. Materials engineering trades one against the other...

Polished tungsten carbide band beside a visibly scratched softer silver-tone band.The short answer is that tungsten carbide resists scratching better than almost anything else you can reasonably wear on a finger — but “scratch-proof” and “scratch-resistant” are not the same claim, and the difference matters when you are choosing a band you intend to keep.Where tungsten sits on the hardness scaleJewellers measure scratch resistance with the Mohs scale, where talc is 1 and diamond is 10. Tungsten carbide lands around 8 to 9. For comparison, hardened steel is roughly 7, titanium is about 6, and the gold and silver used...