Our Rings
About Our Rings
For the curious, here are some of the important details of CTR elaborated on. Why do we custom fit rings? What materials are offered? What else do we have to offer?
A small glimpse at the breadth of our sizing. At left is a ring for a typical adult male. At right a ring sized for a child.
Custom Fitting Rings
Fitting a thumb ring is no small feat, they are notoriously difficult to get comfortable. Some ancient thumb ring makers used wax castings of the shooter's thumb. Thankfully in this day and age we have calipers and our custom Ring Sizers to make communicating size easier. Even so, this has its limitations. To this end we offer two solutions. The first is infinite sizing. We have no standard sizes, every ring is custom and can be sized up or down at unlimited intervals to perfectly fit your thumb, and manufactured on our precision CNC machines. The second is our hallmark innovation: we offer rings in sets of three closely spaced sizes centered on the size provided. This acknowledgement of the difficulty in accurately sizing rings is key to getting our customers into comfortable custom fitted rings.
Five Chinese Spur rings showing our five standard polymer colors, from left to right: metallic gold, metallic silver, metallic copper, nocturnal blue, and black
Standard Polymer
Our standard polymer rings are a great way to get started. They're strong, impact resistant, and inexpensive. We offer a variety of different colors including metal-fleck materials which are much like a metallic car paint. We also offer specialty metallic finishes which take that metal-look one step further, and carvings for even more exotic appearances. Beyond that, we also can do a wide variety of polymer colors on a limited-run basis, and have been experimenting with extreme-durability polymers as a better performance analogue to horn. Have an archery team or shop and want a a run of rings in an exclusive color, maybe something that'll really let you stand out from the crowd? Get in touch, we can make it happen!
A fully bespoke ring, combining tongue and spur, in solid copper.
Metal Rings
Modern polymers are exceptional materials, but they didn't exist 500 years ago, in fact they were in their infancy less than 100 years ago. For those who want jewelry, historically accurate materials, or simply shoot high poundage bows we offer our rings in a variety of metals including stainless steel for the practical shooter or copper, bronze, and sterling silver in jewelry grade finishes. All are available on a custom order basis.
Our Sarmation ring shown here in solid bronze. This project replicated what is thought to be the oldest metal thumb ring ever found.
Historical Replication
Our rings, with few exceptions, are intended to be dimensionally accurate replicas of historical rings/ring styles to the greatest extent possible. To this end we take great care to copy, not simply the visual style of a ring, but the mechanical elements of a given ring's function. These tweaks may seem subtle, but significantly affect ring dynamics. Where necessary we interpret and blend designs to make them functional and manufacturable with modern materials and technology, but the goal is never to compromise the function of a given historical style. Each model, its unique function and release dynamics, replicates that of either a single ring or genre to the best of our capabilities. To this end we've worked with various individuals, perhaps most notably Mike Loades and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston to gain access to their priceless knowledge and collections. If you have a unique ancient thumb ring, and can supply detailed photography, please contact us.
Our stylish rendition of the famous Turkish Siper, complete with a little of our own stylish flair. (harness included, just not visible in this photo as it is tucked under the plate)
Other Artifacts
Rings represent just a tiny fraction of the diversity of Asiatic archery equipment out there. We've replicated all sorts of other equipment from the exotic like Mughal nocks and Turkish sipers to more mundane things like building arrows from boards or bronze swords. We have a full suite of design, prototyping, and manufacturing technology at our disposal. Across industries we've manufactured all manner of crazy things from one-off semi-functional prototypes to full production. So if you have something unique and special, too valuable to use for experimental archaeology, get in touch and we may just be able to reproduce it for you. Alternately, our adventures in replicating unusual Asiatic artifacts go up on our blog, so if that kind of thing interests you, check it out.