Titanium was first discovered by clergyman William Gregor in 1791 who, basically didn't know what it was until in 1795, Austrian chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth identified it as a new element, gave it the number 22 and named it Titanium after the Greek Gods - The Titans.

Even in those early days a gap in the market was spotted for Titanium rings but, due to the lack of technology available at the time, jewellery designers were unable to meet the demands of the public for this hot new material and so designs lay dormant for 202 years until in 1997 GETi started production on them. First trials of the rings, although basic, were good due to the high experience within the company in the field of precision engineering. Since then designs and quality have gone from strength to strength to make GETi the world leading brand of quality Black Zirconium and Titanium rings, both plain and inset with precious metals and diamonds.

Titanium is a naturally occurring element found in the Earths crust and other 'M' class planets. Some sources say Titanium is the sixth most abundant element others say the ninth. I don't really know how they can possibly work that out so all I can say is that there is a lot of it to dig up. The process of producing Titanium is very technical and I did have plans to research it and write about it, but to be honest I didn't understand a lot of it so I've condensed the explanation somewhat by saying that they mine it, separate it from the surrounding elements which leaves a Titanium sponge-like material and then produce castings or bars before sending it to GETi to be converted into our world famous rings. Hopefully this shortened version has helped to keep your attention without boring you too much !!

Titanium is highly reactive and it is possible, under certain conditions, for it to spontaneously combust at high altitudes. Please do not be alarmed though if wearing a ring and travelling on a plane, the chances of you landing on the runway at your destination and resembling a sausage on a barbeque are very remote - besides I think you may feel it warming up anyway - ONLY JOKING !!

People aware of Titanium will know of its high tensile strength to weight ratio, but to the best of our knowledge Titanium rings will not float as a certain film featuring three angels and a man called Charles would have us believe.

Alloying Titanium with materials such as Aluminium and Vanadium produce a much higher tensile strength material - Grade 5 or Aircraft Grade. This grade is used by GETi to manufacture our tension set diamond ring designs. In our experience it does not possess higher scratch resistance to the purer Grade 2 material that is used for the rest of our designs but the extra tensile strength is crucial for that particular design to hold the stone securely in place. Also please be advised that resizing rings made from Aircraft Grade is totally impractical, so you should be wary of companies boasting about this material as it will be extremely difficult to resize a Titanium ring made from this.

Titanium has a very high corrosion resistance, this is due to the ability of the material to, when scratched or machined, form a protective oxidised surface almost instantaneously - unlike gold or aluminium for example, which oxidises (or tarnishes) slowly over a period of time. Deep sea divers and surfers like Titanium rings particularly because of this high corrosion resistance to salt water we even came across a mention of swim shorts made from Titanium fabric which provide a degree of protection from shark bites but cannot confirm the existance of such.

Uses for Titanium - apart from GETi rings, Titanium has many uses, golf clubs and spectacle frames are made from it, surgical implants, aerospace, marine and motor industry applications even paint, to name but a few.

Please note that the information contained in this article has been researched from the internet and also contains snippets of our own opinions - we cannot confirm what we consider to be true facts about Titanium but at the same time we do not have reason to doubt any of it. The only facts that we can confirm are about GETi and the quality of their rings and other products - no animals were harmed in the writing of this article and we accept no responsibility for errors contained.

This is a question that gets raised quite frequently.

A lot of Titanium ring suppliers give a warning about taking care with getting the size right as it can't be altered in the future - this isn't strictly the case as it all depends on different factors.
 
· Grade of Titanium
· Is it diamond set?
· Does it have a precious metal inlay?
· Does it need to go up or down in size.

Whilst it isn't normally within the capabilities of a traditional jeweller to do a quick resize, there are often various options that the manufacturer can take.

Grade 2 commercially pure Titanium is fairly ductile and will stretch and compress quite readily. If it has a precious metal inlay set into the outside it is probably better to take a skim out of the bore to make it bigger - stretching will normally cause the inlay to split. The amount of increase could be up to about two sizes.

Compressing a ring with an inlay is usually ok for about one size. Compressing plain rings depends on the outside pattern. If it is patterned then the amount of force required to compress it will undoubtedly cause too much damage to repair the outer surface economically and so should be avoided.
 
Plain domed or flat rings don't present much of a problem. Diamond set rings are quite limited in their potential to be resized, stretching or compressing causes deformation at the weakest points where the holes have been drilled for the diamonds and so, here again, the only option is to remachine the bore to make it larger. (1 to 1.5 sizes)
 
Higher tensile grades of titanium, such as aircraft grade Ti/6Al/4V (or grade 5 as it is also known) will not stretch or compress. The only option with these is to increase the ring size slightly by remachining the bore larger. In many cases, especially with plain rings, due to the amount of refinishing required with resizing it is simpler to make a new ring. This isn't always an option, for example, when a ring has been bought as a wedding ring and has been personalised with engraving and blessed in church. http://www.geti.cc