ManAdorned My Wedding Band - A Custom Stainless Creation

I was so absolutely excited to work with Andrew at Himeros to produce my wedding band in practically indestructible tungsten carbide material that I became inspired. Working with Andrew and exchanging image proofs of the proposed designs via email, I became motivated take my 3D modelling skills to the next level. I’ve been a long time user of simple modeling tools like sketchup and OpenSCAD and even used them to create some adornments (examples: 1, 2, 3… but they have their limitations in terms of complexity and attractiveness. So I decided to learn how to model with Blender and FreeCAD and see how far my newfound skills could take me in my favorite hobby!

What you see here is the result of designing my wedding band from scratch in the two modeling programs. In Blender, the model was created with bezier curves and extruded around an axis whereas the FreeCAD approach used multiple segments and only one bezier curve (for the inner radius - to fit my exacting demands), mirrored and then extruded around a curve. Of course, many tweaks along the way were done during renderings to ensure that the final product would be perfect. When I settled on a resulting model, I sliced it and 3D printed it to ensure the proportions were what I expected. I almost stopped there after wearing my custom design for a few days and loving the feel and the fact that it was “made of my own hands”, but had to see how far I could take it by finding CNC manufacturers online that offered the ability to build from a model. Several offer the ability to upload a model (STL is an option, but step files will preserve curves and has vastly superior results), choose a material and a finish, and receive fast quotes. A day or two later, I decided to give Rapid Direct a shot as the cheapest option and the bonus of having one of the nicer online interfaces. The order was placed and my custom made ring was in my hands about two and a half weeks later.

The design features a 1.870" inner diameter, a perfectly radiused inner profile, a masculine .787" width, and the 304 stainless steel weighs about half as much as the tungsten carbide expression of my wedding ring. The finish is not as high quality as Sancus, but is still wonderful to behold. I chose a polished natural stainless, but results may have been “shinier” had I opted for chrome plating or electroplating.

At a cost of less than $130 to my door and a resulting ring that I absolutely love, I’ve already designed and placed an order for a second version that is not as wide - and may even give aluminum as a material a whirl next! I will probably write a whole blog post about the entire experience some time because of how fun it was, but suffice to say, the end result is chef’s kiss amazing!