Can you scratch a tungsten ring?

YES. Anything can be scratched by another object that is harder, including tungsten carbide. You just need to find things from daily life that is harder to scratch it, and diamond is the most referred to substance in this regard.

1. Mohs Scale

In order to determine whether a particular material could scratch the surface of a tungsten carbide ring, it is very useful to understand the hardness scale that is used to describe the relative hardness of different materials. The reason of using the Mohs scale is not that it is the best scale available. In fact, there are many other hardness scales that are more well defined and more accepted in industrial applications, these include Vickers scale, Brinell scale and Rockwell scale. However, Mohs scale is the simplest and easiest to understand. A German geologist Friedrich Mohs chose ten different minerals and arrange them in an increasing order of hardness, number the softest mineral talc a hardness of 1 and the hardness mineral diamond a hardness of 10. He did that by observing which mineral can scratch the surface of another mineral on the list. Tungsten carbide has a hardness of 9, according to this scale, which means that it can scratch nine minerals out of the ten and only diamond can scratch tungsten carbide.

2. Brush finish tungsten ring

It is thought that the type of finish on a tungsten determines how easy a tungsten ring can get scratched. The truth is that a brush finish tungsten ring is not scratched easier than a high polish one. The reason for which some people might think that a brushed tungsten ring scratches easier is because when it is in contact with another rough surface, like cement, it will scratch the cement and rub off part of it, leaving the powder stuck in the small crevice of the brush finish. These debris is hard to get off and a normal wiping or soap solution is not going to remove it, creating the illusion of a scratch on the ring. A pressurized steam cleaner can remove these "scratches" very effectively.

3. What has scratched my ring?

If you currently own a tungsten ring and it has a scratch on it, you may wonder why and how it happened. Isn't tungsten carbide the hardest material used to make wedding ring? Is diamond the only thing that could scratch my ring? If you try to going through the list of common hard substances list, it tells you that very few substances, natural or man-made, have hardness greater than tungsten carbide. Furthermore, most of these substances are very rare in nature. How often does an ordinary person come into contact with carborundum, carbonado or boron? It is very reassuring to see that so few substances can scratch my wedding ring, but it is also perplexing that my ring get a scratch without seemingly getting into contact with these minerals.

4. Caring for your tungsten ring?

Whether you store your jewelry in a drawer, a safe or a jewelry box, it is recommended that you store it separately with other diamond jewelry. This is the most common cause of scratches on a tungsten ring.

5. More diamonds from daily life

We are in contact with diamonds more frequently than we know. Besides being used in jewelry, diamonds have many more applications, most of them are as abrasives. Diamond powder is widely used on coating drill bits, grinders, buffers and polishers. Even some sandpapers from the hardware stores contain fine diamond powders to improve the abrasiveness. That is the reason why even though a hardened steel file cannot scratch a tungsten ring, some nail files can due to the fact that the nail files are made from diamond encrusted sandpapers.