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I Forge Iron

Titanium sword?


Wyatt Lavallee

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Titanium is a quite bad sword material.  I have a hand forged Titanium, (CP1 or 2) knife that I use as a camp eating knife.  I've met many people all excited about it until I show them the mark where I carved a slice off it with a belt knife with the edge made from a nicholson file.

Titanium is the wrong weight for a sword---for over 1000 years the average weight for a good using sword was about 2.5 pounds; so go lighter and you find that it's easy to ignore attacks from it or to block or brush them aside.  Ever get a paper cut?  why don't they make swords from paper?

Why do you think Titanium would make a good sword?

"Commercially pure (99.2% pure) grades of titanium have ultimate tensile strength of about 434 MPa (63,000 psi), equal to that of common, low-grade steel alloys, but are less dense."  wikipedia

So you can spend a LOT more money (cost of stock and cost of working it and cost of materials to work it), and end up with a much less functional sword---of course you will impress the fanboys...

Watch the video linked above at about 1:45 where he says titanium is suboptimal for the purpose!

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I'm amused that anyone would expect different for a TV show....

I made my camp knife out of Ti so I could throw it in the trunk after a campout, forget about it for 6 months and then put it in the dishwasher for 10 cycles of "double over kill wash" and have it just the same as before the trip....(its self hilted too!)

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Ti is also a flammable metal similar to magnesium. When drilling you have to use 600 rpm or less for a 3/16"drill bit or you will ignite the chips. I've done that, just like a mag fire starter. It's not something I would consider forging without safety research.

 

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