Meet Bruce Boone of Boone Titanium Rings in Roswell

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bruce Boone.

Bruce, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My business started when I got a computer controlled milling machine for the basement of my house. I had always wanted to be an inventor, and this was the ultimate prototyping machine. I made some titanium bike components, and dialed them in to be both stylish looking and the lightest cogs in the world. My wife and I decided at the last minute to do a booth at the large international bicycle expo, I threw together a display stand and we got Best of Show, with people standing 15 deep trying to get to the booth. We were inundated with orders from all over the world and had to grow the shop and business, getting more machines and people. It did very well for several years, and the market slowed down a bit.

One of the parts we did was a titanium bottom bracket, which is the axle between the pedal arms. We made ours from 1″ solid titanium and it was the stiffest one in the world at the time. We had small pieces of bar left over that were too short to use, and I realized that I could make myself a titanium ring since I had all the equipment. I had looked for one previously and couldn’t find one anywhere. People started seeing my ring and wanting one. We made a large batch for the next bike show, and I completely sold out of rings. It was then that I realized that wedding rings were always going to be in season and it would be a steady market. It was much less of a niche than high end bicycle components that replaced stuff that was not that bad to begin with. Everyone has fingers.

At a time when the Internet was just starting out, we decided to do a web based business. I made a website and tried to steer my offerings towards more unique rings. I was the first to offer wood inlays in a titanium ring. We pushed the envelope into inlays of stone, acrylics, precious metals and meteorite. For the ladies, we offer tension set rings, which hold a diamond without traditional prongs. We started offering different metals including black zirconium, cobalt chrome, and stainless steel. We added a variety of lasers including a high powered laser, engraving laser and welding laser to multiply our capabilities. We are currently moving into a larger shop.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Like any new business concept, there’s quite a lot of learning curve. Early on, we experienced a large bout of credit card fraud from Singapore and learned from that. We also had our eggs in the one proverbial basket with our website, so we started dealing with affiliates on other sites to be sure that our business would not completely tank in case the search engine algorithms changed, which they constantly did as we found out. We’re still learning the ins and out of social media and the way to sell things on the Internet. The rules are constantly changing, and it’s a challenge to keep up.

Please tell us about Boone Titanium Rings.
We make wedding ring in contemporary metals including titanium, black zirconium, cobalt chrome, and stainless steel. These are materials that traditional jewelers don’t use because it takes special equipment to machine them. Whereas gold rings are normally cast from a wax master, titanium rings are machined from solid billet. It takes some very heavy duty machinery to do that. We were one of the first companies making these types of rings, and our capabilities have expanded greatly over the years. Our specialty is being able to make a custom ring, such as a titanium ring in any size and width with an inlay of 4 billion year old meteorite from space in about a day or two. We can also do very specialized artwork such as your own fingerprint laser engraved into your ring. We can make a custom laser cut pendant of your dog or cat. Everything is made to order, and in the size, width, and shape you want.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been great to know which types of rings do better than others. A lot of time and effort goes in new techniques, and sometimes those pay off great and other times they don’t sell well at all. You need to try anything and everything, and every once in a while, it will pay off greatly. Knowing what I know now, I also wish I had bought up all the Gibeon meteorite I could find years ago when it was more plentiful and a lot cheaper!

Contact Info:

• Address: Our new location is 3939 Royal Drive Suite 236 Kennesaw GA 30144
• Website: www.boonerings.com
• Phone: 770-645-6488
• Email: bboone5619@aol.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boonerings/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BooneTitaniumRings

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