Monday, November 5, 2012

Tungsten vs Titanium Rings

Both titanium and tungsten are considered "model metals" in the jewelry industry because they were not available to the consumer market as commodities until ten years ago. They have gained tremendous popularity since the introduction and become an integral part of the jewelry material spectrum.




1. Hardness - Both titanium and tungsten carbide are considerably harder than precious metals like gold and platinum. However, tungsten carbide is one of the hardest materials in existence and substantially harder than titanium, registering a 9 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness (compared to titanium’s score of 6).

2. Scratch-resistance - Due to its hardness tungsten carbide handily beats titanium when it comes to scratch-resistance, though titanium is still considerably more scratch-resistant than other popular materials. There are virtually no materials other than a diamond that can scratch tungsten carbide.

3. Weight - Titanium is lighter than tungsten, 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.

4. Price - Titanium jewelry is in general cheaper than tungsten 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.

5.Engraving & Resizing - Titanium can be engraved and resized. However, a Tungsten is too hard to be engraved or resized. Although engraving can be done, the letters will be very faint and difficult to read. 





1 comment:

  1. Superbly written article, if only all bloggers offered the same content as you, the internet would be a far better place..
    Titanium Necklaces UK

    ReplyDelete