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Comment by michaelrpeskin | Hacker News Reader

I did a similar thing using some titanium out of the scrap bin. (Yes, I know that it will be nearly impossibly to cut off in an emergency, but we just take them off before we go climb or do other dangerous stuff.) It’s been 15 years and they still look great. I left the tool marks on them, I liked how it looked like it was machined.

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> titanium out of the scrap bin. (Yes, I know that it will be nearly impossibly to cut off in an emergency,

Most commercial grades of Titanium can be cut with common tools. The tools will dull faster, but it's not impossible.

I suspect a lot of the stories about Ti rings being impossible to cut are coming from people who confuse Titanium with Tungsten. People get exotic metals mixed up all the time.

On the other hand, if you pulled it from the scrap bin you may have gotten some extreme aerospace grade of Titanium that really is difficult to cut.

Even Tungsten isn't particularly hard to cut. Also truly Tungsten rings are a lot less common.

Most of the rings referred to as Tungsten rings are actually Tungsten Carbide. Tungsten Carbide rings, by comparison, is VERY hard to cut. You basically need a diamond blade/saw/grinding wheel to cut through TC.

Yet, you (gently) smash it with a hammer and it breaks to pieces. By adding a block that is a bit thicker than the finger bone, you prevent smashing your finger in the process

Locking pliers (aka vise grips) are a good tool for it, since you can set how wide the jaws will close

https://youtu.be/poM423pewRE?t=147

FYI, only time I've known of a ring being cut off was due to a bee sting on the finger, causing it to swell.

Another anecdote for your collection: my father fell off a ladder last year - not far enough to sustain any injury, but far enough to catch his ring slightly in trying to regain his balance. Finger ended up swelling enough that the ring was a problem, ended up having to be cut off.

I wouldn’t have imagined that a fall off of the second step of a ladder could result in the destruction of a 40 year old wedding ring either, but here we are!

You can get it fixed https://youtu.be/aX866Kx4oU8

Thanks - they opted to melt both down and poured around a synthetic opals for a new set.

Plus a new "can't hurt myself with this if I tried" ring for any time spent outside.

Destruction? My wife crushed hers onto her finger in a cycle crash. It was across the park from our house. Her finger swelled terribly. I put her in the car and drove her to the fire station just down the road where they cut it off. I learned there was a special tool for this! I sent the cut ring to a jeweller friend of a friend... who melted it down and cast it into a slightly smaller ring! Edit: in another post there isa video where someone solders up a cut ring. My wife's ring was much more damaged by the crash than the rings in the video, hence the melt

I had a titanium ring cut off my middle finger that swelled from high blood pressure and weight gain. It took a long time with a ring cutter at a jeweler's in Chico, CA, but it worked.

can you precut it, then solder/polish it to hide the cut?

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