That's Crazy !

[AkWildman]

So I was forging out a guard the other day and holding a piece of steel in my tongs,as I was tapping away I saw a flash or a spark come from my left hand and felt something different.I stopped set my work down and opened my hand and there was two pieces of my wedding band,I looked down and the other piece was laying on my shop floor.My ring was tungsten carbide and the vibration from my tongs must have been just right to cause it to shatter.A tungsten carbide ring can be fractured with a blow or a squeeze from vise grips but nothing like that was going on just steady tapps.Crazy !

 

[aelgin]

They design fracture points into the tungsten rings so they can fracture them if needed. I've seen people drop them on a cement floor and they shatter if they land just right. I've switched to a silicone band myself. Makes things a little safer when working on machines at work. If it catches something it will just stretch instead of pull my finger off.

-Aaron

 

[AkWildman]

Ya I'm very careful around machines as a gloved finger (skinned) I don't need.The plus of the tungsten is it fractures rather then sqwash around your finger.I must have had the right vibration going on for it to fly apart like it did.The wife wanted new wedding bands anyway and now I guess I have to give in.

 

[bladegrinder]

Your lucky you didn't shoot your eye out, I was an electrician 25 years ago and stopped wearing mine then, I had to put my finger in a vice to round it off to get it off. I put the ring away with some others and never wear rings anymore. I might get one of those silicone one's someday to surprise the wife. I'm sorry to hear your ring came off that way, it might be possible to TIG weld it back together.