I’ve seen wooden rings. I’ve never seen ones like this. And it turns out, a wooden ring can last a VERY long time if they’re done right. With craftsmanship.
I would not have given much credit to a wooden ring for strength or really, any actual “jewelry-like” properties, but I was wrong.
Where to buy from Doug Wrege: Custom Burl Rings
You can treat the wood by performing “stabilization” which is where they apply a vacuum to the wood and then let it suck up a polymer resin that makes it super-polymer tough. Or they can put dyes in that polymer and confer color. And they can make them out of grained wood- or BURLS.
A burl is a chunk of tree “scar tissue” where a tree’s been fighting an infection – or damaged, or growing around a piece of iron or fencing. It has no grain and it’s usually harder than regular grained wood.
But the patterns are great. Often, it has to be “stabilized” as described above.
Doug gave me a Black Ash Burl ring, and a Cocobo ring with grain, and a Brazilian Rosewood ring. I take a size 15. And I’m really hard on rings so I wanted that Brazilian Rosewood burled ring.
I got all three! So excited. This is a picture of my three rings.
So, I’ve been treating these two cats, Tank and Guster since they were babies. And the owners are a couple, lovely folks. And I noticed Doug was wearing a really cool ring. (I love jewelry but principally only unique or one-of-a-kind stuff.) I was like, “Hey what’s that?” And then I got the story about how this wood worker was chopping off his fingers and finally wrecked his hand in the saw with a metal wedding ring in the goulash. They had to cut it off. And said “Look you’re a woodworker, don’t wear metal with the saw.”
SO he started making these burlwood custom wooden rings.
It turns out that he has these on Etsy which was cool because I wanted to recommend them to people. Partly because they’re beautiful, and one-of-a-kind, and strong, and way better than a chinese barrel cork, and Doug replaces them if they break in the first few months. For the cost of postage. Impressive.
The Black Ash burl wood ring is a pale color with interesting almost marble-looking visual texture. The way Doug makes them, smooth as glass. Comfortable.
The Brazilian Rosewood wooden ring is the hardest wood you can make a ring out of. And the wood is rare since Brazil is not allowing it’s export anymore.
The Cocobolo wood ring has a marvelous texture. I don’t even know if you’d want the Burl version because the grain is so distinct.
The story behind the Burlwood Ring and why Doug started making them:
“Save your finger with a wooden ring”.
Doug: “I started making rings after an router accident on my left index finger that severed my extensor tendon. They had to cut off my wedding ring for the surgery as it would not go over the knuckle. Afterward, my hand surgeon recommended that I not replace the metal wedding ring as she got about five cases a year where men had caught their ring when climbing over a fence or jumped down from somewhere. The damage to their finger was such that the surgeon could almost never repair the finger. I didn’t like neoprene rings but being a woodworker I tried making wooden rings since they would break rather than severely damaging my finger. These rings are all made from a wooden blank, often needing stabilization to avoid breaking too easily. Bentwood rings are almost too strong to break before inflicting damage which is why I chose not to use that technique. My rings don’t break easily, but if they do they can be replaced very inexpensively compared to the thousands of dollars required for hand surgery or for gold/platinum replacement rings. I have several dozen that I use depending on the day. They have proved to be so popular that I decided to make them available to others.
Since these rings are intended to break before you severely damage your finger, sometimes they break prematurely. If it breaks in the first 6 months after purchase, I will replace it for shipping cost of $5, just send me a photo of the broken ring.”
So I just wanted to share with you, these cool rings which I think you could keep in mind for a gift for a “friend or family who has everything”.
