I’m currently the middle of wedding prep, and that means emailing/calling vendors; following up with invited guests; and buying all sorts of random things like wedding card boxes and “Just Married Signs” and suits and, of course, wedding bands. As I’m not one to go the traditional route on pretty much anything, I decided against a standard gold band; I wanted something car-ish, so I thought to myself: “What car-like thing is the shape of a wedding ring?” Then it came to me: A tire!
It turns out, tire rings are a thing — I had no clue. But it seems like there are all sorts of vendors on Etsy making custom rings that look like tires. Unfortunately, the first vendor, named Racerings — a big one in the tire-ring space — stopped making tire rings out of Titanium, which is the material I wanted (since I think its color would look the most accurate, and it’d be durable). But then I happened upon an Etsy vendor named Jason Olsen, who runs VentureCustomShop out of Nebraska.
I peeked at a few of the rings in his online store, and asked if he could make me a custom one out of Titanium. I was trying to decide between the classic look of a BFG All-Terrain or my favorite off-road tire, the Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac.
Jason said he could do either. In fact, after I sent him the exact tire treads, he even scanned them both into his software:
Look at how detailed the tread is! Surely the final product won’t have sipes, right? Surely they’re far too small?:
After just a couple of days, Jason sent me a few photos of my titanium ring, right after sandblasting and before any coating had been applied:
Then Jason added a “Battleworn” finish, which he says hold up extremely well to abuse, which is good, because when I wrench I destroy pretty much everything (my phone has taken a beating over the years).
It looks pretty good:
Then Jason sent me this glamour shot, and my jaw hit the floor:
Holy smokes! That looks like an actual Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac!
Within fewer than 10 days of my initial request, I had this box at my front door:
Look at how absurdly detailed this thing is!
Total cost was $320, which is significantly cheaper than a standard gold ring. Yes, Titanium isn’t as precious as gold, but boy am I blown away, and excited to wear this thing everyday.
That is gorgeous!
Only piece of advice: don’t wrench with rings on. “Degloving” is a thing. A gross, scary thing. I know it’s a wedding ring! I know it’s supposed to be there forever! Still, designate a safe place to put the ring when you’re elbows-deep in engine. I have one of those freebie jellybean tins from Pelican Parts to stash jewelry in so my rings don’t get lost in my purse when I’m fisting a 944. Maybe designate a specific pocket in your pants to put it in? If you put it in the same place every time, there’s less of a chance it’ll get lost.
This is good advice. I worked with a dude who’s wife got mad at him if he ever took his ring off. He has nothing resembling skin on his ring finger now.
55 years ago I was wearing my new wedding ring while working on my wife’s mustang. I managed to short between the battery and the solenoid. That ring got might hot, mighty fast.
For some reason, I saw the headline and thought “Ha ha, she’s not gonna want a tire ring! Typical DT, ha ha” and then realized it was for him
That’s exactly what I thought too
I assumed it was for her, but that she’d specifically requested it. Shrug
That’s awesome! That’s super well done. Love titanium, too – the feel, the weight, the sound, it’s such a unique metal. Good choices all around!
Gold is fine. I’ve been wearing my gold ring for 36 years now, have not taken it off in that time.. goes wrenching, swimming, up and down mountains, etc.
It’s a bit battered but then so am I 😉
that is a good-looking ring tho, nicely done.
My mother had a platinum ring with a braided weave, this ring reminds of it a little.
As a married wrencher – my only advice, get also a silicone “workout” band if you want to wear a wedding ring while working on your car.
I just had my Claddagh tattooed on my finger. No more forgetting to put it back on after playing with electricity. . .
That is easily the best wedding ring I have ever seen! Congrats.
Now that is a very cool ring. But I’m in the camp of running it full time.
I’ve been rocking Tungsten Carbide argyle for 15 years now. Since I put it on, I think the time it has been off my finger can be measured in hours, not days. Those rare times I take it off my left hand, it pretty much always gets put on my right hand, just cuz my finger itches or I need a little extra space when wrenchingl
Much like old cars, I’ve made a decision that the value derived is well worth any additional risk the ring adds.
Impressive
Ok, wow….that price is ridiculous and honestly a case of someone undervaluing their work (presuming it is actually titanium).
Gordon, NE is pretty much the middle of nowhere. Basically, you can’t get there from… anywhere. Except Alliance, NE, home of Carhenge. He might have been happy to have the work.
What are the odds that you make that comment to one of the probably 3 Autopian readers who have actually been through Gordon, NE?
And on a random Alliance, NE sidenote…..was road-tripping with my brother to deliver a 27 Model T Touring hot rod he just sold to a friend from Oklahoma. Stopped at a fast food joint for a quick bite early in the morning a met a bunch of old guys having their coffee and holding court, as is tradition in small town. They saw the T on the back of the trailer and we were suddenly the most popular people in town. After finishing our breakfast and talking cars, we found ourselves invited over to a local car guys shop to check out his cars and hang out. Awesome experience and almost felt bad that we had to force ourselves to leave or the old guys would have never let us get back on the road!
How cool can it get? That is fantastic.
I too bought my ring on Etsy. Mine’s paisley-engraved copper around silver. It is now roughly D-shaped from daily activities. After reading about Jimmy Fallon nearly accidentally ripping his whole ring finger off I don’t wear any rings unless dressing up for an event.
In my tiny town everyone knows me and my wife so it doesn’t matter. I didn’t find that people cared much about a wedding band in L.A., either.
Cool ring, though!
I (used to before kids) rock climb and up until recently did a lot of prototype car builds for work. I’ve gotten so used to wearing a cheap silicone as my daily that I hate wearing my real wedding ring and will only do for special occasions too.
I also got my ring on Etsy, but its “Fordite” and titanium. I also have a silicone ring for wrenching just in case.
Looks awesome, DT!
Um.
Does want.
(Not yours, of course, but mine own)
Been wearing a Ti ring for 24 years now. It has held up very, very well considering everything I put it through. Good choice.
Well if you ever go full-fledged tire-themed supervillain, this is how we’ll find you out.
Wow, David, what an awesome ring. You must be so stoked.
I’m amped!!
Be sure to pace yourself. You don’t want to be too tired for your wedding.
When the tread is worn down, you’ll know it’s time to renew those vows.
Shockingly cool ring.
As a fellow titanium wedding ring wearer, I’ll pass along some wisdom that a cyclist friend of mine picked up from an ER doc he frequently rides with:
Don’t wear this while riding/skiing/doing any activity where it is possible/likely that you will break or dislocate your ring finger; most ERs don’t have the equipment to cut a Ti ring off a hopelessly swollen finger.
I swap over to a silicone ring for that stuff (concerts and football games too…clapping hurts with a solid ring).
Congrats!
I’ll probably daily-drive a silicone ring.
I daily drive silicone as well after splitting my tungsten ring in half. It held up to 10 years of restaurant work, wrenching on 3 cars, and a lot of woodworking as well.
A Ti ring can be cut off with a standard ring cutter, which is something most ERs, fire departments, and lots of ambulances actually have. Not only that, you could also use a pair if sidecutters. Ti is not hard to cut. Why does this falsity keep getting passed around in this thread.
If an ER doesn’t have something to cut off a titanium ring, that means they are unequipped to cut off a gold, silver, or platinum ring too.
Yeah, it’s my understanding that it’ll mess up the cutting blades and they won’t be *happy* with you compared to using it on softer metal, but titanium can certainly be cut.
IIRC Tungsten is the one you want to avoid as that one just won’t get cut.
You fracture tungsten. All it takes is some vise grips to do. Alternatively, some bolt cutters will fracture it, same with a bench vise. The problem is, these tools are far less common in a ER, though, I’d wouldn’t be surprised if they started having a set a vise grips available (this is just a big fat guess though).
Yeah, people have this notion that titanium is some ultra-strong supermetal. It’s not really, it’s about as strong, based on physical dimensions, as good steel. It’s just lighter and more corrosion resistant.
It does tend to eat tools faster than stainless though. We had to replace taps and end mills faster when running Ti parts. And at my current job the Ti plates destroy the threads on our removal tools quite quickly
Brings new meaning to ‘Ring time.
Does “Elise” know how to to do the installation and balancing?
Titanium stains porcelain. I stopped wearing mine after I realized that too late. This is an awesome idea and result !!!
I don’t think it’s your ring leaving those stains on the toilet.
Lol!!
that’s pretty wild and cool. Good luck.
That rough texture is gonna fuck up your hand dude – particularly the interdigital fold between your ring finger and middle finger, and the ring side of your middle finger. That’s fairly sensitive skin there.
And that’s before you start doing any actual work.
You’ll find out fast why wedding rings are generally fairly smooth.
Weren’t these abundantly advertised on the last two pages of Cycle World all throughout the 90’s, along with the “Human Pheromone X” ads with the ugly lady doctor something something, that was the same ad for about 20 years – almost as persistent as the Jonathan Zizmor tight skin ads in the NYC subway ?
That’s an awesome ring DT! (it really is!)
I would suggest that you get yourself an Ultrasonic jewelry cleaner. Due to your frequent wrenching that ring is going to collect some serious dirt.
(add it to the Bridal registry) 🙂
Luckily, Elise (Not Her Real Name) has one!
Well, you’re all set then! 🙂
So will “Elise” be getting one too but with diamond studs?
The level of detail on that is amazing!
We made each other’s rings for our wedding, and I specifically went for nice soft gold so it can be cut off. Also she made it with a hammered and brushed finish because that’s how it’s going to end up looking anyway.
Her ring needed a weird custom bend in it to fit around her engagement ring, and the jeweller overseeing the ring making insisted that I spend four hours carefully filing platinum to shape, rather than let me spend half an hour making a press tool and engineer it to shape.
Yeah my ring would need a cut off wheel or a pretty serious side cutter at 10k. I’m guessing yours can be cut off with a pair of scissors?
I work with a lot of different metals, and gold, silver and aluminium are so much softer than platinum, which is much softer than steel, which is slightly easier to cut than titanium, which is a dream to machine compared to tungsten.
Tungsten is easier to crack than cut. Smash it hard enough and it will split. Ask me how I know, lol