How do you forge titanium?

[firebug]

Has anyone on here ever forged Titanium. I have a couple NICE pieces and want to make tongs and other things out of it. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Dave Hammer]

Randy McDaniel has forge titanium. His website is "http://www.drgnfly4g.com"

[mike-hr]

I got to play with TI 2 times, at hammer-ins. I hope someone can shed some light on the different alloys.. The first piece was a crescent shaped saw drop about 4 inches long. The guy that had it asked if we could make something out of it during midnite-maddness. I got to be the forge guy, and got 2 strapping lads with 8# sledges to strike for me. After maybe 6 heats and plenty of re-hydration, we succeded in making a slightly dented crescent shaped piece, we all agreed on a stupid art-speak title for the 'scuplture', and gave it back to its owner.

The other piece was at another hammer-in, a piece of flat bar, maybe 1/2 by 1 inch, we heated it up and it moved a bit faster than warm butter, but left a yellow powder residue on the surface..

[Thomas Dean]

Robb Gunter has done this. Don't know how. I weld the stuff regularly and it not the art of welding but the art of PRUGING the stuff. On on my test coupons, back in the 80's, we cut the weld only out of the coupon and tied a knot in it. When not purged correctly it will break like glass. Fun stuff to weld. Would like to try forging it some day.

[metalmangeler]

I have forged grade 5 Ti some. It is absorbing oxygen as you heat it and after it is out of the fire so you would do best with a reducing fire and get the job done with a minimum number of heats. It forges best when pretty hot and starts getting hard when you think it should still be hot enough (or at least that is what I thought). Quenching in water does not seem to effect hardness/brittleness from my personal tests.
To make tongs I would punch my rivet hole as it may be difficult to drill.

[Golden_eagle]

*Titanium is softer than steel, more like aluminum but two times heavyer. you can't forge weld it (to my paltry amount of knowledge) but it is annealed by Quenching(Like copper!)

*I checked the entire thing. its accurate,

[ThomasPowers]

I've foged a bit of the CP 1&2 grades of Ti, like butter at temp; but the more/longer it's hot in the forge the more brittle it can become so start with a piece as close to the finished size you can and work *fast*.

There is supposedly some Ti alloys that will give off toxic fumes. I can never remember which alloy though as my stash was CP 1&2.

I forged a set of Ti tongs for my gasser about 10 years ago and punching the rivit hole is a *good* idea! (other things I have forged was a knife fork and spoon, penannular brooch, pipe tool. I have some large stock I was thinking of making some hammer heads from... need to make a tool to cut and form the peens using my screw press in one operation.

[primtechsmith]

Dave you beat me to it!
Randy makes some pretty blades with that stuff...he is someone who would be good to talk to about it.

I see him in here from time to time...

hmm...

:-)
Peyton

[steveh]

Mr Hofi`s BP1013 is on tungsten tools.

[Steve Sells]

Maybe you and I can not forge weld Titanium, but look at the all the timascus being made and see that it can be done. The timascus.com web page is dead.

[Frosty]

Mr Hofi`s BP1013 is on tungsten tools.

Tungsten and Titanium are two entirely different metals, no relation at all.

Frosty

[steveh]

what was i thinking????

[Frosty]

Well, if I'd never gotten one thing confused for another I might wonder. . . But.

Frosty

[steveh]

no kidding,thanks Frosty.

[Nabok]

Any idea what type you have? I’ve ground and done a little machining, but never forged any, I gave Ron Reil a drop of 6AL-4V bar (AL for aluminum, V for vanadium, some places list this as grade 5) I got from a knifemaker friend. After forging Ron noticed some flu like symptoms, he thought it was possibly due to the vanadium. CP2 commercially pure, aka grade 2 is another common type, and might be a little more forge friendly.

Todd

[Ice Czar]

is annealed by Quenching(Like copper!)

errr...copper is annealed by heat just like steel, whether you quench it or not doesnt matter, its quicker to get back to working it, but it can cool slowly and still be annealed

Annealing (metallurgy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

[Golden_eagle]

Thanks for telling me that! I got the information from an older metalworkers handbook(era- 1920-40), one of my faults is taking everthing i read (informational only) as fact.

[bipolarandy]

your wrong Czar, if you heat copper, silver, brass, gold ect... and let it cool slowly, that will harden the metal. Copper and steel are different.

[brianklein]

Interesting thread!!!

[element]

The most impressive thing i seen on titanium is a guy on you tube that made a knife with it. Right after he forged it and let it air cool he put it in a vise with the blade portion sticking out, Took a six pound sledge and and hit the blade with all his might and you could tell the force he was puting in it and it never broke or bent!!

[CBrann]

Where can I get some Ti for decent money. 2 years ago a guy I work with asked me to forge a knife for him, I looked into buying some and it was about $380 for a 3/4" x 3/4" x 12" of I don't remember what grade. But like steel and stainless there are some grades that are more forge friendly than others, no idea which ones though.

[Steve Sells]

try this link for detailed info about titanium Metallurgy of Titanium and its Alloys

[Sam Thompson]

The most impressive thing i seen on titanium is a guy on you tube that made a knife with it. Right after he forged it and let it air cool he put it in a vise with the blade portion sticking out, Took a six pound sledge and and hit the blade with all his might and you could tell the force he was puting in it and it never broke or bent!!

YouTube - Forged Titanium Knife

[element]

yep thats the one.

[plain ol Bill]

Steve you are right that Timascus shows that titanium can be forge welded. We have made a lot of it and it is a really interesting material to work with. It requires close monitoring of heat since ti will burn and that can cause a fire in excess of 4000 f. Makes for a really exciting time when that happens!
Titanium works well under a hammer, either manual or power. Keep the heat in the 1800 - 1950 range and it really moves well. There is a point it will be moving well and the next blow just bounces off. At that point temp has dropped off to 16-17 hundred and it just flat refuses to move any more.
Titanium will NOT make an acceptable blade folks. It just will not get hard enough. I, and a lot of other knife makers use it for knife furniture, liners, locks, handles etc.