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| These outside rings are Rainbow anodized niobium rings from C&T Designs. The inside rings are bright aluminum. The weave used is called Dragonscale. |
I thought I would break the semi- precious and precious metals up a bit and do one at a time. This is one of my favorite metals. Niobium is used in many wonderful jewelry applications as both a natural dark grey metal and brightly colored anodized metal. It is also a highly conductive metal at very temperatures which makes it perfect for use in high altitudes. It is very resistant to acids and corrosion as well. You will also find niobium in steel alloys for added strength in uses such as gas pipelines and welding joints. Some other places you find this metal include jet and rocket engines, superconducting magnets, MRI scanners, nuclear industries, electronics, optics and numismatics (I have no idea what this is). I would not suggest you use this metal for armor! It is gorgeous and has a nice masculine color and weight but... it is kinda brittle and would NOT hold up in a reenactment type of use!
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| The bracelet being modeled by my little friend here is called a Viperscale and is made using teal and purple anodized niobium with stainless steel. |
Niobium is found and produced primarily in Canada and Brazil and most commonly used in alloys. It's chemical symbol is Nb and it's atomic weight is 41. This metal is rarely found in it's pure elemental state. Most often it must be separated from a similar element called tantalum. It is soft and dark grey in it's natural form and brightly colored when anodized, a chemical and electrical process used for coloring metals for jewelry use. It was first found by an American named John Winthrop of Connecticut in 1750 and sent to England where it was officially discovered in 1801 by an English chemist named Charles Hatchett. He named it columbium and gave it the symbol Cb. There was much confusion over the similarity of niobium to tantalum and this wasn't resolved until 1846 when it was rediscovered by a German chemist named Heinrich Rose. He was unaware of the previous discovery of this metal and renamed it niobium after Greek mythology's Niobe daughter of Tantalus. Rose discovered that tantalum actually contained a second metal and named it niobium. It officially received it's name in 1949 and soon after was used in commercial applications.
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| This is a sleek cuff weave made using stainless steel and rainbow niobium with an iridescent gunmetal trim. |
Okay enough with the school stuff... By the way, if you are interested in finding some niobium for your personal use you might begin looking at the following suppliers: http://www.bluebuddhaboutique.com/ http://www.candtdesigns.com/cart.php http://www.firemountaingems.com/?navsrc=1
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| This one is a mixture of tea, green, light green and pale green anodized niobium with bronze interior rings. This weave is
Dragonscale.
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The following sites were used for information purposes.
As always please feel free to leave questions or comments! I hope you enjoyed this little bit about one of my favorite metals. Thanks for reading and or following!
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