Can You Resize a Ring of Any Design or Material?

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If you’re here because you realized your ring is the wrong size, we’ve got good and bad news for you. The bad news is no, you can’t resize every ring out there. The good news is that you can resize a good number of popular ring materials, so all hope may not be lost. Ring resizing is actually quite common and a fairly easy service to find. 

Resizing Up and Down

There’s a pervasive rumor out there that you can make a ring bigger, but not smaller. This isn’t true. In fact, it’s actually easier to bring a ring down a size than it is up a size. Luckily, both can be done. If you haven’t bought a ring yet and you’re on the fence about sizing, go up. While an intricate process, it’s still fairly simple for a skilled jeweler to make your ring smaller. 

How Much Can a Ring Be Resized?

Probably more than you think. So, technically, you can resize a ring up to four or five sizes. Do you want to do this, however? Likely not. It can really damage the structural integrity of your ring to go that far up or down, so you’re probably better off buying a new ring at that point.

A good rule of thumb is you can go up or down two sizes at most and really shouldn’t resize more than twice if you can help it. While you can technically do it up to four times, you really shouldn’t. Honestly, do you need to resize it that often anyway? Maybe just get multiple rings at that point.

Whose Rings Can Be Resized?

This is an area where men’s wedding bands tend to have an edge. Women’s wedding bands often have more ornate settings and solitaire diamonds at the center, which makes the resizing process more difficult. Men’s bands, on the whole, tend to be simpler in design and thus easier to resize.

However, on the flip side, some materials that tend to be more associated with men’s wedding bands are harder to resize, so it all really comes out as a draw. 

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Classic Metals Resize Well

Gold, silver, and platinum take the cake in resizing. These classics are the easiest for jewelers to resize, so you have a larger room for error when choosing these. They aren’t as hard as some of the newer materials on the ring market and, as such, are more malleable.

Newer Materials Are More Difficult

Some materials that have become more popular recently are tougher to resize. These include tungsten, titanium, tantalum, and carbon fiber. These tend to range from very hard to resize to literally impossible to resize. While you can resize tungsten, for example, it is an absolute pain in the ass and potentially not worth your time and money.

 

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Do I Have Options?

Resizing isn’t the only way to get your ring to fit properly, though it is probably the most popular. If you don’t want to resize or you can’t resize, you can try a few things. Note that these options only work if you need your ring smaller.

Beads – Beads help make your ring smaller at significant savings. A jeweler will add two small sizing beads to the inside of your ring, reducing the size without having to cut or buy a new ring.

Spring insert – Basically, this is an insert that takes up three-quarters of the inner part of your ring. You slide your finger through and the spring pops into place once your finger has passed, locking that ring onto your finger comfortably.

When Not to Resize

Your fingers can swell throughout the day, after an intense workout, or with changing seasons. If your ring is uncomfortable on occasion, it may just be due to swelling in your fingers. This isn’t a reason to resize, though. In these cases, just take your ring off until the swelling goes down. Alternatively, you could get a cheaper ring — like silicone, for instance — in a slightly larger size to wear when this happens.

The best option, of course, is to just get the right size. Sure, sometimes things happen that are out of your control, or you’re getting the ring for someone else and you end up half a size off. If you can avoid it, though, that’s always the best option. A ring size chart is your best friend. Measure twice, buy once.