Titanium is a durable, affordable and beautiful metal making it a great option for jewelry. Titanium rings are jewelry rings or bands which have been primarily constructed from titanium. It is light grey and can be polished to a shine or textured for a matte finish. Rings crafted from titanium are a modern phenomenon, becoming widely available on the market around the 1990s. Titanium rings offer several unique properties: they are biocompatible (hypoallergenic), lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and have the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any crystalline metal. Titanium is especially popular in men’s wedding bands, partly because of its industrial history, though many women’s wedding bands are also available in titanium.
Construction
Titanium is incredibly strong, far stronger than other conventional materials. Titanium rings are constructed using solid bars, tubes, or sheets of titanium, which are cut into the desired shape and size of a ring. For example, if you hit a hammer on your titanium ring with medium force, the hammer will just bounce off it. The metal can be machined using the same equipment and via the same engineering processes as stainless steel. Titanium is also harder than most other conventional metals. It does scratch, but not as easily as silver, gold, or platinum. The usual jewelry-making techniques of rolling and soldering are not practical for titanium, although they can be fabricated by welding in an inert atmosphere using, for example, a laser welder. Titanium jewelry is a very comfortable wedding ring choice because it is so lightweight.
Properties
Titanium has become popular as a jewelry material due to its various unique properties. Titanium is biocompatible, or non-toxic to the human body. Similarly, titanium rings will not react with wearers who suffer allergies to other jewelry materials.
- It is highly resistant to most causes of corrosion, including seawater, aqua regia, chlorine (in water), and some acids. Titanium rings are therefore practical jewelry for those who regularly swim in the ocean or chlorinated pools.
- Titanium rings generally have higher fatigue resistance and strength-to-weight ratios than most other metals. Titanium now commands the highest levels of quality for many consumer product industries; including sporting equipment, medical, automotive and marine, art and architecture, giftware, and, of course, jewelry.
- Titanium rings are difficult but possible to resize. The amount of the reduction and increase is limited. Titanium is the fastest-growing category in jewelry history. Without exception, titanium has dominated each and every market arena it has entered.
- The technology used in working with titanium has significantly and positively impacted manufacturing methods throughout the entire jewelry industry. Titanium is the perfect marriage of art and science.
- Titanium itself will not change color or tarnish. However, any colored (anodized) area is not scratch resistant. Black titanium is not anodized. It is a permanent, scratch resistant solution.
