As the Lathe Turns: Handcrafted Titanium Wedding Ring Blog

Custom-Made Titanium Rings

Exotica Jewelry — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:28:00 -0700

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YOUR design carved into YOUR titanium ring

One of the more satisfying kinds of jobs we do is custom work that requires us to take a customer-supplied image and turn it into a ring. Most images will convert nicely to a titanium wedding band or promise ring and we can say quickly whether something is possible or not. We can usually color the image however the customer wants, with a few exceptions.

Below are several titanium wedding ring projects we’ve done over the years for men’s and women’s titanium bands, each with the original image we used to turn the customer’s idea into their hand-crafted titanium ring.

Email us with your own ideas for a custom titanium ring or call us today! (800) 297-6707

Titanium Band With Tractor

We loved this one—a farmer couple who wanted the image of a favorite piece of farm equipment on their titanium wedding rings submitted this drawing:

and we put it on their wedding bands!

The finished ring: Emporia

We have made many nature-inspired titanium rings over the years; three such projects are below.

Titanium Ring with Feathers & Diamonds

A bird-keeper at the San Diego zoo wanted a titanium band representing her work but that would also hold up to the demanding physical tasks of her job. Here is a drawing a friend of hers did of bird feathers and another drawing showing the way she wanted the feathers combined with diamonds:

And here is the finished titanium ring, anodized a rich gold:

The finished ring: Eugene

In the end, she decided to have us remove the color, but we like that gold look!

Titanium Band with Raccoon Tracks and Silver Inlays

A couple was inspired by this titanium ring we made, with a kite and silver inlays:

The existing ring: Silverado

but the couple wanted raccoon tracks instead.

They sent us their mock-up:

and we made the ring:

The finished ring: Silvis

Titanium Ring With Waves and Whale Tail

A customer liked the wave-themed titanium band we had already made but wanted us to add a whale tail like this:

or this:

so we did!

The finished ring: Echo

Man’s Titanium Band with Motorcycle

Here’s a fun one. The bride wanted to surprise her Ninja motorcycle-loving fiancé and sent us a photo that wasn’t that great, but good enough for us to get the drawing we needed from it.

With her approval we added a wrench and some lug nuts, a little color, and voilà!

The finished ring: Excelsior

Medieval-Style Titanium Bands with Gaelic Phrase

We get requests fairly often for special characters to be engraved inside rings. Sometimes customers want them on the outside, which we can do also. These titanium wedding rings were to have an inscription in Gaelic in a specific font style but also needed to look Medieval/rustic or at least antique.

Here is the profile (shape) requested for one of the two rings:

Here is the font requested:

And here are the finished titanium rings—antiqued in green!

The finished rings: Centuria and Centuria 2

These are just some of the special projects we’ve completed over the years. We’re always looking for the next challenge so send us your ideas and watch how we turn them into your hand-crafted titanium dream rings!

For a complete catalog of handcrafted titanium wedding rings, including wedding rings inlaid with gold, platinum and niobium; set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires; and custom rings created from your own designs, visit www.RingsForever.com. You can also receive our blog entries by email.

A Pilgrimage to the Discovery of Titanium

Exotica Jewelry — Mon, 26 May 2008 01:18:58 -0700

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In 1990, we were honored with a commission to make a plaque of titanium commemorating the discovery of titanium in Cornwall, England. We were given some materials by the Titanium Development Association (now the International Titanium Association) to help design the plaque, including a copy of a painting of the discoverer Rev. William Gregor. We included a glass vial of ilmenite (from which titanium can be refined), titanium sponge, an ingot of titanium, and some mill products.

Gregor found the titanium near the parish church of Manaccan and, as he was visiting the church's rector, Richard Polwhele, the Titanium Development Association presented the commemorative plaque to that church.

Since 1990, we have asked several people to visit "our" plaque when they visited UK but we didn't realize how far Manaccan is from the usual UK tourist destinations. Then, in 2007, our daughter began a year's internship in London and we finally had the needed push to visit the plaque and the location where titanium was discovered.

Here is a map showing Manaccan's location:

It takes over 5 hours by train to get to the depot in Falmouth from London; here are some photos of Paddington Station where we got the train:

In Falmouth, we met local historian and author Derek Carter, who, along with his wife Susanne, acted as invaluable guides in Manaccan and the area called "The Lizard" which includes the southwestern part of Cornwall. Their beautifully detailed tour included fascinating information about U.S. forces in Cornwall during World War II, when Cornwall was called the 49th state due to the overwhelming number of American serviceman. Derek co-wrote, with Viv Acton, two books about this period. The first is Operation Cornwall 1940-1944, The Fal, the Helford and D-Day and the second is Cornish War and Peace: The Road to Victory — and Beyond. Both are full of compelling details and first-person narratives.

We took a beautiful drive along the coast, up the Helford River to Gweek, on to pick up Susanne at their home in St. Martin, and then to the church at Manaccan.

For many years we thought the church in Manaccan was Rev. Gregor's church but in fact, Rev. Gregor was vicar of Creed parish church. However he paid frequent visits to his friend Rev. Polwhele who was vicar at the Manaccan church. It was during one of these visits that Rev. Gregor discovered some unusual black sand in the water of Tregonwell Mill, near the church. Upon detailed analysis he realized it was a new mineral and named it Manaccanite. A few years later, M. H. Klaproth also discovered titanium in Germany, later realizing it was the same material Gregor had found and crediting Gregor with the original discovery. But Klaproth's name for the material — titanium — is the name that stuck.

The Manaccan church was begun in the 13th century and has many lovely Norman details. Here are Chris and Derek outside the entrance, across from what used to be the vicarage:

And inside the church:

It was a thrill to see our plaque displayed in such a historic setting and, given the abundance of historic objects in this church, made us feel we had been "relicized." At one point the plaque was on the wall; now it is on a window ledge.

...in the company of another relic, a copy of the coat of arms of Charles I (1600-1649), and a chair made from original roof beams.

Here we are, reunited at last with the plaque.

Following our visit to the church, Derek and Susanne took us to nearby Tregonwell Mill where their son Bruce lives. Here is a painting by John Whale showing Tregonwell Mill in the late 1700's:

Chris and Derek look upon the house; what's left of the old mill is to the right:

This is the actual location where Gregor found the sand which contained titanium. Chris relives the discovery:

On the front of the mill is another titanium plaque.

Chris and Derek discuss whether the correct date of discovery is 1790 or 1791:

A Few of the Many Lovely Scenes in Cornwall

A newly thatched house

Lizard Point

Pendennis Castle, Falmouth
Built 1540-1545 for Henry VIII

Homer's Odyssey and Titanium Wedding Rings

Exotica Jewelry — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:00:00 -0800

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Chris writes...

Here's a fascinating connection between a technique I use with titanium wedding rings and really, really ancient knowledge. I am using a twentieth-century metal employing a process that was first described by Homer in The Odyssey circa 800–600 BCE.

In a 2005 paper, "The Heart of Steel: A Metallurgical Interpretation of Iron in Homer," Ruth Russo, Whitman College, points out that the tempering of iron was discussed in Homer's Odyssey. This very useful metallurgical process is portrayed in the following quote where the hardening of iron is compared to the attack on Cyclops by Odysseus and his men, who were using a hot spike of olivewood:

...as when a man who works as a blacksmith plunges a screaming great ax blade or plane into cold water, treating it for temper, since this is the way steel is made strong, even so Cyclops' eye sizzled about the beam of the olive.

By using some of the ancient metal-working techniques described by Homer, along with many newer developments, I've been able to facilitate many customers' ideas into unique and personal wedding rings.

My specialty is custom titanium wedding rings. A customer calls and says, "I want a guy riding a mountain bike on my ring."

And, from a bird keeper at the San Diego zoo, "I need to have a particular bird feather embossed on my wedding ring."

And then there were the mathemeticians who wanted Euler's identity...

One technique I use to transfer designs onto titanium rings is known as embossing. This requires me to first cut the design into tool steel in order to make a die. I use gravers, tiny burrs, and grinders. Then, using a torch, I temper (harden) the steel die by getting it red hot and oil-quenching it which produces lots of sputtering, smoke, and strange odors. At this stage, the steel is glass hard. If I tried using it, it would shatter so now I must anneal it by slowly reheating it until I reach a particular color: the brown right before purple is what I'm after. Too much heating and the die becomes soft; too little and it would break upon striking the titanium ring.

I then take this die and put it in an old kick press, one of the precursors to a hydraulic press. The titanium ring sits below the die. And with a swift kick, the die comes down and embosses the ring. As you can imagine, titanium is strong—three times stronger than steel—so the die has really got to be tough. I love the idea that, to make my custom titanium wedding rings, I'm using this ancient knowledge on a metal which wasn't discovered until 1790 and wasn't widely used at all until the aerospace industry got involved in the 1950's.

Got a great idea for your wedding ring? E-mail us your ideas and, with the spirit of Odysseus, we will turn your vision into reality. Check out our complete catalog or learn more about our sizing guarantee we have for each of our handcrafted titanium wedding rings.