The following are some things to consider if you are thinking
about buying a titanium or tungsten carbide wedding ring or
just want to know the difference between the two.
Hardness
Titanium and tungsten carbide are both known for
the superior hardness over traditional metals such as gold,
silver and platinum. One thing worth noting is that it is
not the metals themselves in a pure form that possess the
hardness, it is their alloys that do. Roughly speaking, the
hardest form of tungsten carbide is harder than titanium alloys.
Ductility
Titanium is more ductile than tungsten carbide in
the common alloys used in jewelry. In other words, when a
wedding ring is under high pressure, such as hit by a car
door, a titanium ring would be bend out-of-round whereas a
tungsten carbide ring would fracture into several pieces.
Hence, in terms of safety, a tungsten carbide ring is "safer"
to wear.
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. We only offer tungsten carbide
with nickel as a binder metal. This makes our tungsten carbide
rings hypoallergenic, even to people who are allergic to nickel.
Weight
Titanium is lighter than tungsten carbide, or more
precisely, has a lower density. Titanium alloys are about
43% lighter than stainless steel and tungsten carbide is about
90% heavier than stainless steel.
Coloring
Titanium reacts with different chemicals and produces
alloys of different colors. Jewelry makers use anodization
to coat colored patterns on titanium rings. Black titanium
is another form of titanium alloy that has a different color
than the commonly used grey color. On the other hand, tungsten
carbide is usually a gun metal grey and our black tungsten
carbide goes through a coating process. This coating will
not chip or peel--it is permanent.
Pricing
Titanium jewelry is generally cheaper than tungsten
carbide jewelry primarily due to the difference in equipment
and environment control need to produce them. The temperature
for forming a tungsten carbide is about 6000 Fahrenheit, which
has to be in either a vacuum or hydrogen environment.
Resizing
Titanium wedding rings can be engraved and resized. However,
a tungsten carbide ring is too hard to be resized.
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