[Jewelry making - Article 00561] - Re: [Orchid] Resizing a tungsten steel wedding band

[David L. Huffman]

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Hi Teri;

    Tungsten is a sintered metal, extremely hard and brittle. It's an
    interesting jewelry metal, but as others here have noted, using it
    for a ring brings up the issue of how unlikely it is that one would
    be able to have it cut off in an emergency. There's no chance you can
    size it down as you would a gold ring. You could cut out a piece with
    a diamond wheel, but you wouldn't be able to close the gap without
    breaking the ring, and although most gold and silver solders will
    stick to it, the seam would be visible and have much different color
    and wear characteristics. 

    That said, if this person really intends to wear it, why not make a
    thin sleeve to slide inside the ring and reduce the diameter? It
    could possibly be burnished in place by flaring the ends to lock it
    in, or, you could solder it with silver solder using a paste flux
    like Handy or Dandix. For those of you who may have never seen
    tungsten soldered, take a look at a circular saw blade or even some
    carbide burs jewelers use. The carbide teeth are brazed in place to
    the steel body of the blade or the cutting part is soldered onto the
    steel bur shank. I'd choose the burnishing method, creating a
    physical lock, since it's possible the tungsten will etch slightly on
    the surface during soldering, and polishing would be arduous,
    requiring diamond abraisives. 

David L. Huffman
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