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The Sexiest Metal
jonerik writes "Denver's weekly Westword magazine has this article on titanium and the attempts to break it out of its traditional aerospace/defense industry niche, including its growing use in architecture, computers, jewelry, sports, knives, cars, medicine, and other areas. The upside: It's as strong as steel but weighs half as much, it doesn't rust, and it's fairly plentiful. The downside: It's expensive compared to steel and aluminum and its high melting point makes it difficult to work with under some conditions. Still, it's nice to see it being used in other applications." Heck, I know someone who used it as his wedding ring. Pretty cool, actually.
But the question is, "When can I get my own titanium plated technodrome?"
Boo yah.
Not for anything, but I get looks of envy everywhere I go. I love that computer.
The greatest thing about my titanium glasses is that some little part of me would survive re-entry should I fall off the space shuttle in the future!
-- I am baseball in Minnesota.
My GeForce 2 is made out of titanium! Extra durable, for those all-night gaming sessions.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Titanium may be as strong as steel, but it's far easier to bend when cut thin. Anybody who has one of the titanium PowerBooks will attest to the fact that if you try to pick them up from one end, the thing will bend disturbingly. This is why you won't see titanium in kitchen sinks, silverware or anywhere else where the metal needs to be thin, strong, and unflexible. The only thing it has going over steel in these cases is buzzword compliance and price (if it's more expensive, it must be better!)
"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepeneur'." -George W. Bush
of course, you'll all remember that titanium (or an alloy of it) is used for internal structures on the Enterprise-D
A sexier metal is Selenium. Runner up is Elerium-115
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
www.tirings.com carries some great rings. They seem to be the only ones making highly polished ti rings. I'm hoping my fiancee gices me the go-ahead to get one. She unfortunatley has a hang-up about our rings not matching.
I think the blue titanium oxide looks great. I have questions about the oxides durability in the long run. Fortunatley I don't have to think about the rings durability.
Does anyone out there have one of these?
pending committee review
My wife and I have matching aircraft-grade titanium wedding rings. If you'll allow me the plug, we got them at
http://artifact.co.nz
which has some really nice stuff. Plus, we can always make jokes about how if we're ever on a giant underwater rig that's being pulled down in to an abyss, we can use them to hold hydraulic doors open. =:)
I inscribed my wife's initials into it as binary. Just a lot of silver-inscribed dots and lines, no one knows it's binary unless I tell them, and then it's a lot of "umm, ok..."
;)
No not ascii, there wasn't enough room for 7 or 8 bits each. 5 bits, for 15 dots/dashes. Got my ring from this site (of COURSE I ordered it through the web
I shattered my wrist a couple years ago, and theybolted a titanium plate to the bone in my wrist. The doctors said it is supposed to stay inside me for the rest of my life. They explained that the lightweight metal was especially well-suited for this purpose, because of it's strength/weight ratio.
My only complaint is it aches after a hot shower or bath, anyone have any scientific reason for why this would be?
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
Take all the DAM pictures you want.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Commissioner Lal
My glasses are pure titanium! (the frame, not the glass..duh)
:)
AND they don't have any screws...they're almost indestructible (that is why I wanted 'em...I'm accident prone).
+ they're super light and they look real good!
You can't take the sky from me...
If you haven't been married for long you probably don't know that sometimes, when people gain weight, the rings start to become, uh, constrictive.
With a traditional soft gold alloy you can snip the tight ring with a pair of bolt cutters or even wire cutters for thinner gauge rings.
With titanium, I don't think you'd have such an easy time removing a stuck ring. A cutting torch is not going to leave much of a finger and using a diamond saw, too, could be real tricky with in vivo parts involved.
Get ready for gangreme to set in, unless you lose a bunch of weight in a hurry or find a good lubricant.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Check out http://titaniumrings.com. Especially the Fire section.
SWEET!
Techchicks like titanium bands and silicon "stones" with holograms.
Liora
Watches are some of the most common consumer goods available in titanium. Citizen is the largest titanium watch maker in the world.
A concern with titanium watches is that, while they're light and strong, they also tend to scratch more easily than steel. This is a concern because in time a titanium watch will look more battered than a stainless steel one. Citizen actually claims to have a process to reduce titanium's "softness" (can't recall if it's an alloy or a special coating), thus reducing this problem.
Back in USSR, for a given quantity of alchohol, you could get pretty neat titanium ware. We had titanium hiking gear such as ovens, climbing hooks, portable shovels, etc. They were considerably better in most ways. Later, in the mid-90s, some "businessmen" were selling bike frames made out of pure titanum. A friend of mine still rides one of those - doesn't rust and very light.
Thor's new advanced space vessels like the O'Neill are made from a Naqadah, Trinium alloy, here's how to build it.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Price and 'sexiness' aside, there are some real advantages to titanium watch bands. All of the strength of a steel band, at a fraction of the weight. I've also noticed that this watch doesn't feel as cold in winter.
I find that Plastic bands do not last, leather bands get sweaty. IMHO, a metal band with a good fit (not too tight, not too loose) works best for me, and they last forever with only minor scratches.
One drawback -- the dull "grayish" hued TI shows scratches more than my old (shiny steel) band. I like the less flashy look (compared to steel) and the lower weight... I've had plastic "sports watches" that weigh more.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Click here or here.
My father-in-law got a titanium bracelet, linked like a chain, but shaped like... flexible conduit meets a plastic snake toy? This was two years ago in Australia, and they were made and sold locally. I'm not telling him he was ahead of the 'cool' curve by a couple years...
I should know, my TiBook (Apple Powerboook G4) gets less than 100 ft. of reception from my 802.11b wireless router.
Where the aerospace industry is described in such a way,
"While titanium has its fans, it's still not clear if the metal can break out of the aerospace ghetto..."
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
In the afternoon haze it looked like this:
The Sexist Metal
*scratches head* Oh wait...
Orange
Where can one buy a wedding ring made of TITANIUM???
Your wife got a real catch with you..... a real catch!
I looked at a titanium wedding ring in a store the other day. It was the wrong size. A gold ring can be stretched or squashed to the right size in no time, but with titanium, forget it!
It was cool to a hold a titanium ring in one hand, and a platinum ring of the same size in the other. The platinum ring weighed down my hand like Frodo-in-Mordor.
When I received my order of the engineer ring, one of the speakers mentioned that it's a very good idea to remove the ring while working with machinery, even moreso than with normal jewelry. The stainless steel is much less likely to break than a gold ring, and thus that much more likely to pull your finger off in an industrial accident.
Then again, a titanium ring helped that dude in "The Abyss", so maybe it has advantages, too.
At first I thought the headline was "The Sexist Metal"! When I started reading about aerospace and defence I started wondering if some militant feminist groups had started going after titanium!
I stole this Sig
Ti is also what was used to cover the new guggenheim in bilbao, spain. Frank Gehry is a genius. originally he was going to use stainless steel. but it didn't catch the light quite the right way. then he saw titanium and was sold. he was worried that it costs 2x as much as stainless, but it was ok because it only had to be 1/2 as thick.
i love the total lack of right angles in that building. simply beautiful.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
I also recommend metalsmiths.com. They do some great work and they do have titanium rings. We got an engagement ring and two wedding bands from them and they were very well done and reasonably priced. My wedding band was titanium with a stripe of gold and my wife's was platinum (and the engagement ring was platinum with an emerald).
The one caveat I would say is that they do sometimes take a while since it is a small operation, so if you are planning to meet a specific timeline order well in advance.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
My wife and I got married back on March 24, and we are both wearing excellent titanium rings from www.boonerings.com.
My ring is styled after Ed Harris's ring from The Abyss, and my wife has a pair of helix rings, one that holds a diamond through tension in a spectacular manner not possible with softer metals.
See: http://www.boonerings.com/large/helixxlite.htm
In regards to safety, Titanium rings can be easilly removed using cutting tools present in most ERs.
Titanium is actually a very reactive metal even more so than Iron.
Fe = -.440
Ti= -1.63
Titaniums corrosion resistance is actually confered to it by the formation of titanium dioxide scales, TiO2 (same stuff in toothpastes go ahead look), the layer slows down the diffusion of oxygen and other oxideizers to the surface of the metal. Much like Chromium does in stainless steel (Cr2O3).
Is Titanium then the best metal for all corrosive environments? Hell no! Its protection is based on the thermodynamic stability of its scales.
Put your nice shiny new Titanium in a highly oxidizing and basic environment (look up Pourbaix diagrams if you want more info). Kiss it goodbye. While plain carbon steel would have resisted it since its scales are stable in that environment and a lot cheaper to. Had you used titanium for your reactor thinking it was the best, you my friend would have been fired.
The moral of the story, there is no one good metal for all applications. You need to consider many factors not to least mention cost.
Veramocor
If they were really hard-core they'd use Airmet steel. (I'm surprised that no one else has hopped on the Airmet wagon. Or maybe I've been reading too much /. Must... control... desire... to... outgeek... <horseshack>Ooh, ooh, ooh! Mr. Kotter, Mr. Kotter!</horseshack>)
If Titanium is plentiful, then why is it so blasted expensive? It can't be solely because it's hard to work with, can it? Is it expensive because it's currently only used for "special" applications? If we start using it more, will the cost go down?
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I have a titanium wedding ring. I got it because, well, it's cool and because I thought it would last forever. While it still looks good after 8 months, but it did scratch after the first week when I scraped it across some stainless steel. The scratch may only be in the polish though. Anyway, if someone wants to know, it cost about $200. I probably got screwed - damn weddings.
I say if Iraq insists on it's oil embargo until Israeli troops leave Palestinian territories, then we should insist on bombing Iraq daily until they lift the oil embargo....
I think we have the artillery to hold out longer than they can.
Check out :
http://www.science.co.il/PTelements.asp?s=Earth
Although abundance doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to get to, or does it ?
There was an article in WSJ a while back which basically said that if Ti could be more easily extracted, it would take over steel. Apparently it's hard to get the metal out purely.
Obviously that's not true for TiO2 which is used as white pigment in darn near everything.
Absolute statements are never true
my glasses frame is made of titanium
Titanium might be smooth and maybe even a little sexy, but the sexiest, and most stimulating metal is definetely "Tonguesten"...
"The scientist describes what is; The engineer creates what never was." - Theodore von Karman
Wearing a ti ring is bad if you ever get injured and your finger swells. Most ER's are not capable of cutting through ti and as a result, you could be in a lot of trouble if you ever need to have it taken off.
Many in my family were "blessed" with acidy sweat/skin. This means that any watch we buy aside from all plastic or all titanium will have it's mechanism eroded in a matter of weeks or months (depending on person). One clockmaker even asked if we dipped a 6 month old designer watch into the ocean for a day or 2... Anyway, with Titanium watches my brother has had the same (very expensive) watch for 3 years now. Since Plastic only goes so far, I bought Ti this year too (although w/ leather strap, but even the strap clasp is Ti). It's light and reliable - what more could we ask for?
Various companies have been making Titanium ice screws for about 11 years now.
Lighter than Cr/Mo and rustproof, take more wear and tear then Al, and stronger, all things equal, than either one.
See for example.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
Check out the Boker site (www.bokerusa.com) for examples of both applications.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
TRUTH :Titanium popular only because of discovery in 1998 on how to CHEAPLY make titanium.
Basically titanium dioxide (a common white powder used in paint and found all over this planet) was found in an amazing discovery to be able to be turned into pure titanium by dipping it in a hot salt and using electricity.
The titanium dioxide is shaped into a cathode in a fused salt cell and under an applied current, the oxygen leaves the oxide as oxygen ions, diffuses to the anode, where it is discharged. The titanium metal is simply left behind and at no stage in the process is the titanium in the liquid or ionised state. This is the major difference with the previous processes. Furthermore, as the titanium is not deposited from the salt, it is relatively inert. Another very surprising observation was that although titanium dioxide is an insulator, it acts as an efficient cathode. The reason for this is that as soon as a minute amount of oxygen is removed, the material becomes an electronic conductor that allows the electrochemical processes to take place. The overall process is that an insulating oxide is made the cathode in an electrochemical cell and the oxygen is extracted to leave pure titanium.
Its a miraculous discovery and though now titanium is dirt cheap... it is still unworkable into finished products. This makes it expensive because machining it is difficult.
It used to be that the material was expensive.
Apple rushed into the fray first with its use of titanium on its flagship computer products.
I wish people would stop acting like titanium is sexy and hot merely because of a fashion fad... its current popularity is soley based on an amazing discovery.
I had my wedding ring made out of titanium and gold. The gold is encased in the titanium, visible as a center ring sandwiched between the titanium. That ring has gotten more abused than any other ring I've had, and it's held up remarkably well. The occasional cleaning makes it look almost good as new.
...when you pry it from my cold dead hands!
http://www.snowpeak.com/gear/sct004.html
Ah, the titanium spork - a glimpse of the sacred within the profane.
Seriously, i trust the spork - I don't trust many of the titanium bike builders out there - do it right (Tom Kellogg) and you have a dream to ride. Do it wrong, and you've got something that will leave you cursing technology and send you right back to your trusty CroMo or Aluminum steed. And it's very very easy to do it wrong.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The core of the structure of an F-14 is Ti, and many other modern jets, but the F-14 being one of the earliest. This box of titanium in the center of the plane is just about the only thing that will survive a catastrophic crash. It also does so with very little damage (relatively) to it. Which brings up the whole... why not make the plane out of the black box question... and the answer is economy... and I'm sure defense secrets... I'd love to hear about some more aerospace uses... Engineers feel free to reply. I just got elected to the student president of AIAA... being a former SAE member focused on cars I need to play catch up on my knowledge of things that fly...
Nice thing about titanium is that it is very saw resistant, which makes it good for bottom armour on Battlebots (like mine). It also makes for good TV because when it is struck hard enough, or hit with a saw it makes nice big, bright white sparks. When you see those sparks on Battlebots, it's not special effects, it's Titanium!!
Hey, me and my wife did the exact same thing! Except we wrote AMOR (love in spanish) in ASCII coded binary. When was that? We got married in 2000.. Maybe I should patent it! ;-)
A metal is not sexy unless you get sexually stimulated by looking at the periodic table. Neither are computers, programs or cars unless you feel urges to do horribly biological things to them.
:P
Geez.
Titanium has seen more and more use over the past decade in body piercing as well. While it is just as strong as 316LVM (Implant Grade) Steel, it does not contain nickel either. People who have numerous and/or severe nickel allergies can be safely pierced thanks largely in part to Titanium (and Niobium as well).
The lighter weight of titanium is another highly-touted feature of the metal in body piercing. Once the piercing goes past a certain point in terms of size, called gauges, weight can become extremely prohibitive for successful healing. Titanium solves a lot of those problems, and allows people to easily start piercings at sizes like 2 gauge (1/4") without having the weight be problematic. I know several men and women who both swear by titanium in their bodies, and will never go back to another metal.
old info. in 1997-1998 a discovery was made making it 4 times cheaper overnight.
Anode-cathod method in salt.
I am in a medievil recreation group and instead of steel for some armour parts people are going to titanium. Going lighter has some advantages in speed. Plus when done right they look real good.
While Titanium is actually a very common element of the Earth's crust, working on titanium metal is major problem, to say the least.
This was what Lockheed discovered when they built what became the famous A-12/YF-12/SR-71A Blackbird using titanium structural parts. Cutting the metal was a major problem, you couldn't use tools with cadmium as part of the metal alloy to work on titanium, and manufacturing large quantities of quality titanium metal was very hard, too.
Even today, titanium alloys are still way too expensive to make compared to modern steel and aluminum alloys. That's why golf clubs with titanium alloy shafts cost over US$400 per club, and also the reason why for commercial airliners titanium alloys are used only in areas where high temperature resistance is needed (e.g., jet engine nacelles).
Besides, the rapid development of epoxy-resin and graphite composites in the last 30 years has reduced the need to use titanium alloys for lighter airplane structures, especially for private and commercial planes. Even though composites are a bit more expensive than stainless steel or aluminum alloys they're still way less expensive than titanium alloys.
Of course it's sexy. It gets you your Glow In the Dark points, too. :-)
For examples of Ti bikes, see Litespeed, Merlin, and Santana Tandems.
The bands are so much lighter, you hardly feel its weight in your nose... ;)
"No dear it wasn't that funny. Yes dear, I'll empty the diswasher right away dear."
Whoops, gotta run!
Actually, titanium bicycles are quite common. There are dozens of manufacturers (lightspeed among the most common) who specialize in titanium. It has been done since the early 80s, but it has always had a premium on price.
The reason for this material on a bike frame is to keep weight low and to reduce road vibration. The material is also holds up well in crashes and since it doesn't oxidize it requires no paint and you can ride in the rain without concern.
Personally I think that carbon fiber is the ultimate material for bicycle frames, but variety is good.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
its not expensive anymore.
In fact its plentiful and cheap as of sept 2000:
Searching for a better way to isolate metal titanium, a team led by materials chemists George Zheng Chen and Derek Fray of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom came up with an electrochemical technique, they report in the 21 September issue of Nature. The researchers start with an electrically conductive crucible made from titanium, inside which they place pellets of titanium-dioxide bathed in a molten salt of calcium chloride. They dunk a positively charged graphite electrode into the salt and pass an electrical voltage between the electrode and the side of the crucible. The voltage injects electrons into the oxygen atoms, allowing them to break free from titanium's hold and travel to the electrode, where they pick up carbon atoms from the graphite to form carbon dioxide. The result: bulk titanium without the mess.
This past summer I had my jaw broken and I had to go get surgery done. I had my jaw wired shut for like 5 weeks, but it wasnt healing right. So the doctor said he needed to do more surgery. So, I ended up getting 2 Ti plates in my jaw. This made it so i would not have any problems later in life and force the jaw to heal correctly aligned. If you want to check out a picture of my jaw with the 2 plates (you can also see the break, so its pretty cool) go here
How do you take a picture of the best moment of your life?
Titanium has been used in high-end bicycles for some time. Litespeed and Merlin are the two big original manufacturers, although some others have come on board. Ti's pretty hard to work, though, so Joe's Bike Shop and Espresso isn't going to be able to buy the kit necessary to work it.
:)
Litespeed cold works a lot of their tubing, which they say creates a stronger tube. They make some breath-taking bikes. And they're breath-takingly expensive, too, believe me.
For some time now people have been arguing the relative benefits of different bike materials. For most of bike history it was steel, but steel's heavy, plus it rusts. You're lucky to get a steel frame under 5 pounds. Some people still swear by the loose feel of a steel bike, but steel is on its way out. Because it's so damn heavy you can't make a really stiff bike from steel - tube stiffness squares as diameter doubles.
This is a win for aluminum, and the reason Cannondale can make such fat-tube aluminum bikes. The Litespeed Blade (Ti) has skinny, horizontally stiff and very aero tubing, but it's not so laterally stiff. Let me tell you, when you weigh 220 and you really pound on the pedals, you appreciate the extra width of aluminum tubing. Some people think it's too stiff, though. A nice aluminum frame (like mine, even if it's a few years old) can weigh 2.75 pounds. Unreal.
Carbon fiber has gotten big lately, too. Tell me this doesn't make your mouth water. That's right - it's got no seat tube. No way can you do that with any metal. Carbon's frighteningly light, but fragile - little scratches really build up and can adversly affect the frame. If you T-bone a carbon bike, one of two things will happen: (a) nothing, (b) you're walking home carrying $2,500 worth of plastic. Trek makes a lot of carbon bikes, including the one Lance Armstrong has been dominating the Tour with. That frame weighs 2.25 pounds.
Trouble is, the start-up cost for a carbon bike fab is astronomical - higher than any other material. If you want a custom frame, you're likely SOL. This is where Ti shines - custom frames are almost as easy as steel.
Thus endeth the lesson
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Yes, you too can be like Bud from The Abyss.
fnord
Titanium tools from here Imprex. No prices list there but very expensive. Out of my price range unfortunately.
I got a titanium spring clip from here. You can make a way cool key ring from it.
More titanium links from this guy.
I have a crown made of titanium alloy - according to the dentist, metal crowns provide less wear on the remaining tooth than ceramic.
Geeks who fancy firearms should appreciate the titanium 1911 frame manufactured by Caspian Arms:
http://caspianarms.com/cast.htm
I'm sorry that you're such a pathetic weakling.
For most applications it is Titanium 6-4, very hard and very tough:
- 6% aluminum
- 4% vanadium
- 90% titanium
For bicycle frames, Titanium 3-2.5 is used as it is more ductile (for forming seamless tubes) and has a better stiffness in torsion (which is needed as pushing on one peddle then the other torques the frame back and forth):
- 3% aluminum
- 2.5% vanadium
- 94.5% pure titanium
even cheaper in sep 2000 :
Searching for a better way to isolate metal titanium, a team led by materials chemists George Zheng Chen and Derek Fray of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom came up with an electrochemical technique, they report in the 21 September issue of Nature. The researchers start with an electrically conductive crucible made from titanium, inside which they place pellets of titanium-dioxide bathed in a molten salt of calcium chloride. They dunk a positively charged graphite electrode into the salt and pass an electrical voltage between the electrode and the side of the crucible. The voltage injects electrons into the oxygen atoms, allowing them to break free from titanium's hold and travel to the electrode, where they pick up carbon atoms from the graphite to form carbon dioxide. The result: bulk titanium without the mess.
I wonder if using Titanium instead of steel in the World Trade Center would have saved some lives? They say the main reason the towers collapsed was the heat from the buring jet fuel destabilizing the steel. The steel weakened and could no longer support the potential energy from the floors above.
Now titanium they say has a higher temperature resistance, as well as weighing half as much as steel. That means that there would have been more time before the towers collapsed (if at all) for them to evacuate people.
Just a thought...
--Jon
Don't forget it is common in the tennis players crowd. ;)
Along with carbon and graphite...
Downmix - The Artscene News Source!
Yeah, we got titanium rings for our wedding.
:(.
It had 'platinum' inlays. After a couple of days my wife got a rash. Now, she wears a titanium watch all the time, so she's not alergic to that. She also has been wearing the platinum engagement ring for several months, so she's not alergic to that either. She is however alergic to tons of other metals, like white gold (or the nickel they use in it).
When she contacted the company, all they said was, ok, return them, insisting that it was real titanium & platinum. To be fair,- they did refund us promptly, but the ease at which they did it makes me suspicious.
What I'm trying to say is, how do you know for sure that things are actually made of the material you are paying for? I guess especially when you buy stuff online it's pretty risky.
And it kind of sucks to have to return your wedding rings
It's as strong as steel but weighs half as much, it doesn't rust, and it's fairly plentiful.
Mythril!
Metals like titanium and iron come from ores.
Fe2O3 + C +heat yields Fe + CO2
Titanium is actually a higly reactive metal and forms very stable oxides in the Earths crust. It takes a lot of energy to liberate titanium to its mettalic form.
Gold and platinum are very unreactive and are usually already found in their mettalic form, unfortunaely the availibility of these metals is quite less.
Veramocor
But, their next goal is to have titanium spear shafts and Kwan-Daos made (big knife at the end of a staff with a point on the other end). I'd hate to be on the receiving end of one of those weapons!
--Chag
ad ad safety discussion
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Movie: 52 Pickup, starring Roy Schieder & Ann Margret.
He is a businessman getting blackmailed for an affair, and later murder, of a porn starlet. Lot's of cameos by mid-80's porn stars.
His business: titanium fabrication via explosive forming - lay a sheet of Ti over a form and then explosives over that. Kaboom, and a complex shape is formed with little to no machining. And the climax of the movie involves the specifics of his business as well.
Sexiest metal indeed.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
When Lockheed's 'Skunk Works' was building the SR-71, they needed an ample source of titantium--the plane was made almost entirely out of it (Mach 3 = high friction = heat). Anyway, they had to use front companies and fake names to buy quite a bit of it From the USSR or other such countries who were 'unsympathetic' to the USA's spy plane program.
Kind of useless trivia for you; I just thought it was funny that the USSR was unknowingly selling the USA the materials to make a plane that frustrated the USSR to no end.
***off-topic***
One of the guys who designed the SR-71, Ben Rich talks about this in his auto-biography 'Skunk Works'. Kind of a fun read about the art of designing super-secret aircraft.
...a beowulf cluster made of titanium!!!
If you get any titanium jewelry, make sure it's got some kind of sealant coating. Titanium is very pourous, and your body's natural oils will discolor it over time if it isn't sealed.
My stapes was replaced with Ti 20 years ago. Still works great. Can't have NMR's done on my head though.
Nickel can cost $15 to $17 per pound while titanium dropped from a low of 10 in recent years to about 7. Australia predicts 5 soon.
The reason? All the many new discoveries of the cathode-salt method as metioned earlier in this discussion.
It is sexy only because it is seemingly more popular than before, and in use by Apple. But its current popularitY is only because titanium oxide (a plentiful substance) can now be electrically converted into pure titanium and is cheaper than nickel.
The Oscar statues switched from a nickel base to tin form a while ago to save money, but maybe when titanium is cheaper than tin Oscars might use it as a base instead?.... too bad its hard to work with.
But titanium is cheap cheap cheap.
...imagine a Beowulf cluster of one of these!!!
Yeah, pretty cool if he doesn't gain weight. Pretty hard to get it resized.
Bullcrap... lots of people with dental fillings get Nuclear Magnetic Resonance images done of their heads all the time. Is titanium magnetic? Highly conductive?
I doubt your word.
And need I mention Apple and their solid titanium laptops. Their chips have titanium interconnects, none of this namby pamby aluminium interconnect or copper interconnect.
Pah!
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet!
One Ti Ring To Rule Them All! Yay!
My father was part of the team at Climax Steel in New York that created thre first titanium alloy. I don't have the exact date handy, but it was in the 1950's.
When he married my mother in 1961, both their wedding rings were titanium. At the time, it was the most expensive metal on the planet.
Titanium can also be surface hardened by anodizing it, or by coating with titanium nitride (which turns it a golden color).
There are also purely mechanical treatments that can increase the surface hardness of the metal, or make it less likely to show scratches.
-Mark
Me too Nikon Titanium $500 dollars for empty frame in mid 1980s. I blew up my face in an arial fireworks accident and the lenses were chared and pitted instantly, but the frames were resusable. I sufffered no permanent disfigurement but am glad the glasses held sound as a blast shield. Most expensive glasses I ever bought. Worth it just for bragging rights. I hope they still do not cost 500.
You will have to find something else to choke your chicken with....
Check out the movies. Now THAT'S sexy!
;-)
Some more Titanium info, but this site is just way sexy. Check out the Flash Periodic Table on it.
Remember this post? "The Periodic Table of Comic Book Elements" from 2 days ago. The main site seems to have been fatally slashdotted, but here's Titanium on a mirror. Not so sexy, but timely.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's not just about being magnetic or conductive.
The fact is, just about any "small" amount of metal may be subject to heating during an MRI.
While a tooth filling may not be a problem due to the relative resistance of dentine in the tooth, I'm sure the inner ear is far more sensitive to temperature differentials.
In Heat, Robert de Niro's character impresses Ashley Judd's by being a metallurgical salesman and reading a book on Ti alloys. *sigh* If it were only that easy ;)
It must be asked: Given the lifespan of the average marriage, is making a ring out of a military grade substance (which will easily outlast the body upon which it is hung) an act of optimism or overkill?
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Titanium is used throughout Offroad motorcycling, especially in Supercross with Factory Support and bikes. Jeremy McGrath's Yamaha uses Ti in the subframe, suspension linkage bolts, axles, and footpegs. His bike also uses billet magnesium, carbon fiber, and lots of aluminum.
Need some for my bike!! `98 KTM 200EXC
Anyone here welded titanium? I wasn't a welder in the Air Force, and it was a long, long time ago, but IIRC the metal shop had to drag out all sorts of gear if welding Ti was necessary. I think you have to flood the weld area with nitrogen because its ignition temperature in air is lower than the melting temperature. Of course, you need something much hotter than the normal welding torch. Then you get the weld done and need to grind down the excess bead -- and as hard as Ti is, that's going to take some time.
But it's mighty durable once it's together.
But having my friends call me only when they need to have a reaction catalyzed is a real drag.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
are way sexier than any other metal, period.
... with iron oxide strips on them. Oh wait, it's really just plastic. :)
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
My dad had to have his ring resized back in the late 70s and I went with him to the jewelers. His ring finger had swollen substantially over time and his ring had become quite uncomfortable.
To remove it the jeweler had a tool with a flat bit that slid between the ring and the finger and had a cutting wheel (like a dremel cutting disk) that cut through the ring. The bit that slid under the ring was aligned with the cutting wheel so that when you went through the ring you didn't start cutting flesh.
The ring was then resized and re-fused to be a continuous ring. I'd guess that cutting is a last resort and that cut rings might have been resized by actually adding material to make them bigger rather than just stretching them.
IIRC the cutting part was hand actuated, but with the safety "backstop" I see no reason other than heat that it couldn't be mechanically operated.
OK it's been a while since I've used my engineering degree, but... IIRC titanium has a lower modulus of elasticity than (most) steels. This means it is more "bendy". HOWEVER, it also has a MUCH higher plastic deformation limit, which means you can bend it a lot farther than most steels and it would bend right back. So for instance if you make a knife out of titanium you'd probably be able to bend it right around but it would spring right back when you were done (no plastic deformation, only elastic). SO, yes your mountain bike frame is more bendy than an aluminum or chromoly one. That is why very few manufacturers make titanium full suspensioin frames, but they're great for hardtails. I read an article once about how some custom TI framebuilder took one of his frames and bent the thing around, to the horror of the article's author, only to see it spring right back. Do that to an aluminum frame and you'd just crack it, but it would be a lot harder to bend in the first place (speaking generally). The fact that you used to compete in mountain biking doesn't mean you know anything about materials. Heck, I compete AND have a degree in Civil Engineering and I hardly know what I'm talking about.
www.clarke.ca
http://www.alleghenytechnologies.com/WahChang/page s/products/cpi/cpi.htm
:-)
Zircadyne® exhibits excellent resistance to corrosive attack in most organic and inorganic acids, salt solutions, strong alkalis, and some molten salts. Thats what im making my house out of. It will resist most forms of terrorist attack.... i hope.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
I remember reading in Science News a few months back that a new process for reclaiming Ti from oxide compounds was discovered. Ti is one of the more abundant elements on the planet, but most of it is in a form that makes it unusable for metal products. The article predicted that it would be used for all sorts of things very soon (like car frames).
Sure, the oxide is poisonous, but it's stronger, stiffer, lighter, and more conductive than titanium. My dream is to have a pair of planar magnetic speakers with six feet beryllium ribbons :)
You have not done your homework? Then you must fight the bear
Is this from something, or some random hilarity you made up, or perhaps a suggestion to improve the educational system?
Check out these Oakley sunglasses with titanium frames - not cheap by any means, but very, very sexy!
Or so says Coil. Yeah.
Personally, I think Platinum is nice, along with Palladium.
Umm... yeah. Titanium is way flexible in sheets (and TiBook case), but it can also be rigid by design (I remember the Air Force Materials Lab learning to fast-forge nearly indestructible drive shafts with Ti in the mid-90's)....
So maybe the main point is still Apple's designers needed to do more work on making the case rim/structure more tumescent.... (Fortunately, there's no chance of my TiBook leaking fuel like the Ti SR-71 Blackbird used to!)
What I still wanna know is who's gonna recycle all this Ti tech after we wear it out or fall outta lust with it!
Ho-ah indeed.
I warned my fiance about this before I bought his titanium wedding band--he's using it as HIS insurance that he won't gain weight.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
...Go Here.
Not because it's hard to refine ( it's harder to refine aluminum)
but rather because
1. A lot of end-user titanium comes from aerospace manufacturers, and has had to pass through FAR tougher quality checking.
2. difficult to machine. Much, Much more difficult to machine than steel or aluminum. It work-hardens at a fantastically faster rate than steel or alumimnum ( work hardening is when you bend a coat hanger for instance, and at the location where you do the bending you'll notice the wire is significantly harder.)
3. Related to #2, it must be welded in a an intert atmosphere for the weld to remain as flexible as the rest of the product. If any oxygen gets in there during the weld the weld becomes a far more brittle metal.
Doesn't rust?? 1/2 weight of steel? Sounds like the perfect material to make a car out of! I want one!
But it's actually aluminum that reigns supreme for enhancing sexiness. Any fool who has downed a six-pack of aluminum beer cans will tell you how much sexier (and even younger) the babes in the local tavern get with each aluminum pull-tab.
One of the more interesting modern uses of titanium is actually an old form known as "chainmaille". Titantium wire, used in place of steel, is used to make intricate and exotic armor using this not-quite forgotten art form.
As it can be easily anodized (plated with a oxide that causes a color change by passing electricty through an electrolyte solution), it is one of the more popular metals for chainmaille jewelry as well.
More information on the use of titanium in chainmaille can be found at : Mailartisans
General information about chainmaille art and armor can be found at the forums at The Chainmaille Board
Frames, rings, golf clubs??? Man you guys sure think small. I will not be satisfied until I am living in a dyson sphere surrounding some tiny tiny star.
This titanium wedding band thing has fad written all over it, get some balls, buy platinum, don't cheap out with the titanium, and don't bother replying saying that platinum dulls, already know that.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Pfft! My watch, that I've had for 12 years is a Longines VIP in titanium and gold, I suppose I was an Early Adopter, oh and it has great geek appeal, as it is the most accurate quartz watch ever made, it even compensates for temperature variation, I've only ever met two other people with the same model, both self made millionaire geeks, anyway it's nice to see some of the laggards catching up.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
Because our armed forces have invested so heavily in high-
tech laser guided bombs and GPS guided cruise missiles,
we have reached the point where a SINGLE missle can cost
1 or 2 milloin dollars. Remeber how we nearly ran out of
air launched cruise missiles because we were engauged in
so many "peace keeping" operations during the mid 90's.
These weapons cost so damed much that we will never be
able to stockpile a large quantity of them. Therfore we
can't afford to wast them on low value targets like
shacks, warehouses, and 40 year old Soviet tanks!
just as well, i suppose.
but while i'm here, i can clear up a few misconceptions i've seen so far.
first, since it's milled, they can bevel the inner edge- or at least the place i got mine from, Rings Forever did. (they did a really cool job, btw.) anyway, they'll make it however you want. but the beveled edge made it easy to slide on and off. it also seemed slippery than regular gold. they used medical grade Ti, which cuts easy enough, too.
second, they stated in a faq that came with it(and i can't find it on the website now) that you had to use a special machine to make one bigger, and it was only good for a one time enlargement. they do say now that they'll do resizings for free.
third, they sound great when struck. beautiful tone.
fourth, the beautiful matte finish they have wears off, unfortunately. but it's still pretty regardless.
i showed mine off to Orson Scott Card at a signing once. he said he had never actually seen one in person; his novelization of 'the abyss' was where i got the idea. (this was back about 93, I guess; got married in 92.)
stored on computers from birth to the grave
Anyone know anywhere to find those Titanium Chopsticks they mentioned? There are some Snow Brand "Carry-on" Chopsticks that are part wood, and part brushed aluminum (dubbed titanium), but I haven't found any of the weapons grade Titanium chopsticks the guy talks about in the article, except on this Korean site that didn't actually sell anything.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
In last June's issue of New Scientist they talk about a new refining technique being developed that could drop the price by 75%. Looks like we'll all be pimpin' in titanium rides before you know it. Check it out. http://archive.newscientist.com/archive.jsp?id=229 75200
Two of the most beautifully designed cameras (IMHO) are made of titanium bodies: The Leica minilux and the contax G series . A tad pricey , but they both excellent designs.
Why didn't you just marry a computer freakshow?
My wife and I looked into titanium rings when we got married. We went to a very good metalsmith and asked him about it, and he explained that he wanted to work with titanium, but couldn't at the time. The equipment he had to do his work didn't get hot enough or allow for enough oxygen or both or whatever. He explained that would buy new equipment, but it was too expensive or some such thing and would have to wait until prices came down.
That was almost 5 years ago, though, so maybe things have changed. When we looked into it, you had to go to someplace that specialized in it or worked with titanium for other reasons (bikes, etc.).
I really would like to have titanium rings, but oh well. That's the way things go.
Forget about me ever buying a diamond again, though--I've read enough in National Geographic and heard enough on NPR about the evils of the diamond trade that I never want to touch one again. Makes the crack trade look like candy manufacturing.
Changing guns for brooms,
The guards change to clean-up crews.
RIP D. R. Goettel
I'm a cyclist, and the Ti wedding ring is OLD news in the cycling community.
Here are some tips... CP(Commercially Pure) Ti is relatively easy to draw into tubes and usually comes from the states in the former U.S.S.R.
3Al/2.5V is the most commonly used alloy for Road and Mountain Racing Ti Bicycles.
Litespeed (Very Happenin' Frame Maker) Actually uses 6/4 Ti in some of it's top framesets cha-ching $$$
Great 6/4 vs. 3/2.5 vs. CP vs. Al vs. scandium from litespeed site...
Well there goes any chance of making my AMD Athlon's PC case out of it!
There was this TV series called "Pensacola" staring Mr. Barbra Streisand as the commander of the Marine flight school. In the opening montage, one could see all that aviation aluminum, all that titanium, and of course that was just for the foundation garments for the fighter pilots' girlfriends -- we hadn't even gotten to the Marine F18's.
Been used for years to make wetsuits. Yup, thatr's right, most watersports enthiusiasts such as me wouldn't go anywhere without "Titanium" emblazoned across our chests. 'Specially not in Scotland, where the reflective properties of the titanium threads keep me warm even in Winter.
I have been wearing a Titanium wedding ring since 6/1999. I bought it at www.titaniumrings.com, a place in Montreal that I would highly recommend.
... it is very strong, and I think pretty attractive.
... meaning that it scratches more or less as easily as any other metal. So after a while your ring ends up as scuffed as any other ring.
The ring is a Titanium alloy - Ti6Al4V
The problem is, whereas Titanium is a strong metal, it is not a very hard metal
If I had to do it all over again I would have had a hardened tool steel ring custom made with a Titanium Nitrate coating. I think that the result would be basically indestructible and nearly scratchproof (with 99% the hardness of diamond). Actually some of the other nitrate coatings are cool too because they have a blue or greenish tint. I probably would have gone with one of those.
The problem with using titanium in applications such as jewelry or heaven forbid structures is its underlying crystal structure. Its very hard but not ductile, consequently when it breaks, it breaks in what my professor would describe as one big scary KA-BOOM. Not such a problem in jewelry, though if it did break it would be near impossible to repair, and the fragments would be sharp.
Titanium is perfect, I love my Ti wedding ring. I got a plain style, not the one with anodizing. The reason is that the anodizing is in a groove, and the groove edges are quite sharp and would catch on everything. You can get them re-anodized though.
Titanium maybe as strong as steel and half as heavy but the size ratio for titanium to steel makes steel the better material where the body of the object must be reasonably compact, as is the case of swords or knives, This may not apply to that whack freak cloud from Final fantasy or any other assorted gunblade looking thing where the blade really probably *is* big enough to be made out of titanium.
I wouldn't want to try swinging one of those things though, yeagh.
There are many materials that are stronger than steel, (spectra, etc) but steel is still the creme de la creme when it comes to blades and blade like objects.
I have heard people using a titanium alloy based material getting results with smaller knives comparable to the same blades made of stainless steel alloy, but stainless steel is pretty weak comparitive to the "cutting edge" in blade level steel (Bainite katana at bugei). I would really love to know exactly what is in that steel, I own one standard katana made of swedish powdered steel and a bainite katana, the bainite is lighter, holds a better edge, and recently now that the swedish powdered steel blade is an ex-blade due to an accidental high velocity impact with a large freestanding concrete structure.. (ahem) better structural integrity too. ;)
If the metal has the word "Tit" in it, of course it's the sexiest metal...
The cost would probably not be prohibitive, as I already pay $80 to $110 for carbon shafts (I swear by the Easton Z-Bubble). I'm not entirely certain that the price is based on the actual manufcaturing cost, anyway.
Anyway, just a thought.
-J
So what if titanium is the sexist metal! I have know about Titanium being used outside of the aerospace industry for twenty years and I am 32 years old! Way back in the early eighties someone built a titanium BMX bike frame. It was about 10-15 grand at the time as I remember. So if any reader wiould go to their local newsstand and pick up a bicycle amgazine you will see that titanium has been used on bicycles for a long time. Hell a decent pair of Ti cranks are about $500 or more. So I do not see all the wow factor about titanium. It is expensive but it works and looks real cool especially on a Litespeed bicycle frame.
Actually, Gillett's has a pretty interesting titanium information page.
That meteor style ring rocks, btw.
Colors are silver, blue, purple or iridescent.
With its cheapest band around 100us$, I wouldn't really call it "expensive".
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
As a Mech that has done a bunch of metal work, Ti doesn't make much sense to use for consumer or industrial uses unless it is REALLY needed. It cost a shitload and is hard to work with. In most applications steel (4130 and 4140) can be used over Ti since the strength to weight ratio is similar and steel is actually stiffer.
GIVEN:
Girls = Time * Money (Just plain true)
Time = Money ("Time is money")
Money = (Evil)^(1/2) ("Money is the root of all evil")
---
Girls = Time * Money
~But because Time = Money,
Girls = Money * Money
Girls = (Money)^2
~But because Money = (Evil)^(1/2)
Girls = ((Evil)^(1/2))^2
~Simplify.
Girls = Evil
..you've just gotta see Beryllium-Aluminum. Ti is great, but it's not that strong - steel alloys can be made much stronger. It's rather flexible - it bends twice as easily as the same size piece of steel.
Be-Al alloys weigh about 80% of Aluminum, or just about 30% of steel. It has the strength of aircraft grade aluminum - near the strength of structural (A36) steel. But the kicker is that it's STIFFER than steel! Not by much, but there are few metals or alloys which have a stiffness greater then 30,000 ksi.
Super high end golf club heads (drivers specifically) are made from the stuff, but I think they cost in excess of my monthly salary. Very sexy, indeed.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
What's the deal with those titanium batteries?
I've had one of these for about a year now. Blurb from their page:
Titanium crowbar is tough, lightweight and rustproof.
Titanium - stronger than steel, yet 30% lighter. It's also non-magnetic and chemically inert, so these tools are perfect for all those household chores. And, because they'll never rust, they're ideal for marine environments, too. (scuba divers and marine salvage operators swear by them). Not to be confused with the dinky little prybars sold elsewhere - these babies are a whopping 22" long and built like a tank! But, at just 1.4 lbs., they're perfect for those "go light, move fast" tactical ops! Brand new. Lifetime warranty.
I think they were cheaper there when I picked one up. Practice safe crowbarring!
The game was "locked" at the lowest difficulty level.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Cool site... I wish I could find one of those in Sweden. For what, you ask? Custom computer case building of course! :-)
Subaru offers a titanium shifter knob as an option on its Impreza line of cars. Personally, I think it doesn't blend in with the rest of the interior.
Most people don't realize that Ti is everywhere. Have a white plastic bottle lying around? Chances are the coloring agent in the bottle is TiO2, titanium dioxide. It's also used in paints (e.g. titanium white). Another cool snippet is the applications in the synthetic industry. Using Ti as a catalyst or reagent in reactions is one of the only industrially useful metals (synthetically speaking, on an organic chemistry level). I often use a reagent called TiCl4 (titanium tetrachloride, or "tickle-4"). The cool thing is, once I pull my syringe out of the airtight bottle, it smokes like some type of badass really really hot knife. Anyway, Ti is cool.
I play tennis, and I find that a titanium racket is much easier to play with than a traditional racket.
while you make pretty speeches...i'm being cut to shreds. you throw me to the lions...a delicate balance.
This story submission used "its" and "it's" a total of 6 times, and each of them was correct. What the hell is going on here?
TMNT? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Your bikes' frame may have bent a lot, then returned to its orgional shape. Titanium is very flexible and durable. What the orgional poster was saying that titanium isn't rigid. So it's not good when you don't want it to be bend ever (you would probably want a bike frame to be somewhat flexable, although I don't know)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'll vote for a mix of elements, formed as mokume gane . It's rather like Damascus steel, but made from different materials (commonly gold, silver and copper alloys, in varying proportions). They take several layers of different metals, diffusion-bond them together, hammer out thin, fold and repeat. The results are incredible.
:)
It'd likely be rather too high priced for laptop cases (well, unless you have money to burn), but as wedding rings it rocks! Though some titanium wedding rings don't look half bad, either
Lemon curry?
One other neat application of Ti is TiO2 coating glass and other surfaces. The TiO2, when exposed to UV light (like sunlight) causes a catalytic reaction oxidizing anything on the surface.
O 2+UV+surfa ce+treatment">here's a link to some pages on Google.
Car windows treated with TiO2 on the outside would literally burn off the gunk that gets on them (insects, bird splats, hydrocarbon grunge) in the sunlight, staying clean.
There has even been talk of using this in medical surfaces (exam tables and O.R.s) - when you are done, flood the area with some UV and burn the microbes off the surface.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Ti
a href="
www.eFax.com are spammers
You know how when you meet someone and don't really find them attractive at first but overtime that changes and you just cant help but have feelings for them? Well, I work in a machine shop and dont work with titanium but I have known steel and aluminum for years and dont even feel the slightest bit aroused when they're around, let alone find them sexy. While I admit, steel and aluminum are no titanium, you'd think I'd feel something. Is this normal? Ti is very expensive. So are women(not the $2.00 kind). Perhaps it the "un-obtainable" notion that makes _things_ "sexy" to people.
From what I hear from bike nuts, the lighter and
stiffer the frame, the better. Hence, Al frames are better than gimmicky Ti ones. (Ti is a relatively soft metal) It would be interesting to
see more applications that take advantage of its
extreme resistance to compression (outside of Russian subs that is)
You know how when you meet someone and don't really find them attractive at first but overtime that changes and you just cant help but have feelings for them? Well, I work in a machine shop and dont work with titanium but I have known steel and aluminum for years and dont even feel the slightest bit aroused when they're around, let alone find them sexy. While I admit, steel and aluminum are no titanium, you'd think I'd feel something. Is this normal? Ti is very expensive. So are women(not the $2.00 kind). Perhaps it the "un-obtainable" notion that makes _things_ "sexy" to people.
I also got my groom's ring from him (this one). I intended it to be reminiscent but not an exact match to the bride's ring.
This is true, what they call a tension setting is really a compression setting - I never really gave any thought to it before. I've made a number of compression settings (still called tension setting on my web page), but my newest sample is a reverse compression setting where the metal crosses under the stone and comes up to hold the sides. To set the stone I compress the ring instead of expanding the ring as with the other compression settings. I'll have it pictured on the next update of the site - http://www.ti-designs.com
I buy titanium plate for use in jewelry production, it's not expensive. My rings start out as a hole drilled in a plate, so the thickness of the plate is the maximum width of the ring. a 1/4" thick 1-1/4" X 1-1/4" piece of titanium is somewhere between $10 and $20 depending on the grade...
Kinda industrial looking for my tastes. My wife and I have rings that look like twisted rope, when put together side by side they look like a square knot. I don't think there are any pictures of our rings, but check out some of my other work at http://www.ti-designs.com
Honda offers a titanium shifter knob for the S2000 as well. It's a cast piece of pretty low quality (as far as titanium goes) with a simple abrasive blasted finish, but it's titanium. I (ti-designs.com) have made shifter knobs for both Honda (M10x1.5) and Audi(M12x1.25) shifters, not a single complaint that they didn't blend well with the rest of the car.
I might agree if all titanium jewelry were the same piece-o-tubing that titanium wedding bands started as over 10 years ago. In my work (ti-designs.com) I'm trying to put that stuff behind me and create some real artwork. If what you're saying has any truth to it, the novelty of a space age metal will wear off and titanium rings will now longer hold their value. That being said, platinum rings, much like their gold counterparts are cranked out by the thousends. How much can a piece of jewelry say about the person wearing it if the next person in the jewelry store can purchase the exact same thing? I'm proud to be able to tell my customers that they'll never see another piece just like their own, they'll last forever (or 'til they lose 'em), and some people even think they look pretty damn good.
Titanium really is amazing stuff. We needed a part made, a cylinder about two feet long, 1.5 foot diameter, of 0.030 inch titanium. The shop cut a piece of sheet titanium and ran it through their rollers to bend it into a cylinder -- and it came out flat. So they set the rollers to a much tigher radius and ran it through again -- they said it was all they could do to turn the crank -- and it came out flat again. So they built a jig to hold it while they welded it. They had to attach a cheater bar 6 feet long so they could bend the sheet to get it into the jig.
If you have a titanium ring it may be difficult to cut it off, but there is another method that often works.
Wrap a piece of string around the finger *BELOW* the ring, winding it towards the ring. When you arrive at the ring thread the string through the ring, then "unwind" the string, the coiled string acts like a screw thread and pulls the ring off.
An illustration of this technique can be found here. (The page also reccomends trying a dremel... which most geeks own, but modifying cases is one thing, modifying fingers is another.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I considered getting a titanium wedding band but was concerned about how it would wear over time. I ended up getting a wedding band made of tungsten carbide instead. Tungsten carbide is a nearly scratchproof hard metal ceramic that is several times harder than titanium.
These rings share many of the disadvantages of titanium rings. They can't be sized. (Titanium rings can be sized up a half size by machining the interior of the band; these can't be sized at all.) They are more difficult to remove in case of hand trauma that gold or platinum rings. (These can't be safely cut off a finger but can be broken with ordinary vice grips.) Furthermore, they can only be inscribed by laser engraving.
If you're looking for a high polish, wear resistant ring with a high geek factor and can live with the limitations, you might want to check these out.
Cobalt blue, all the way.
Uh - you must be loaded if you're buying $50 crowbars.
Her origional white gold setting for the diamond kept bending so we're going to get a titanium tiffany (pronged) setting. It seemed fitting for an eternal bond to have a nearly indestructible ring (it even has a higher melting point than Platinum).
Also, after we got married we read the Lord of the Rings trillogy and noticed the use of "mithril" which was like silver but a very light and strong metal. I wondered if JRRT was speaking of Ti but I never looked into it.
Ti is actually becoming quite popular for making maille...as seen (and purchaseable) on http://www.dcwireworks.com .. go to the Cust. pics section, it's the hauberk with the caption of 'You Have to see this one!'
.. he has a slightly larger variety of gauges...but no pics of Ti pieces, yet.
:)
:? any help?I'm lost]
and that's not the finished piece, actually, he's still workign on it from what I know...
(the dark gray is the Ti...the lighter gray is the stainless steel...also another very popular medium for maillers.)
another place to get Ti rings/coils/wire from is http://www.theringlord.com
anyway...on the Chainmaille Prohosting Forum I'm Julie2022...on The Ring Lord's forum I'm Julanne
oh, might as well add that on the Prohosting forum is where I came across the link to this site.
[ok, try 11...I just can't get those blasted Url's to work
I've got a degree in Engineering, specialising in Metallurgy and I can't say it better than what's above - so mod the parent up guys.
I want it.
---- scrm
If you were going to use dots and dashes anyway, why didn't you just use morse code, which is a very efficient binary coding of the alphabet, and much more likely that people would be able to read it than a 5 bit encoding scheme.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Here you've got some photos and the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum website
In my mind, titanium is the real-world mythril. I think making a wedding ring of the stuff is one of the damned coolest applications.
:) (Probably something mutually meaningful)... I think that her engagement ring will also be made of the stuff, with a nice (not big, not small) stone, and a jeweled light blue stone on either side - all three stones will be plush to the titanium, so that there are no 'rough' edges on the ring.
:)
I'm not sure, but isn't there another strong, white metal that is used in rings as well? Or is that titanium I'm actually thinking of? I know white gold and silver exist, but they suck when we're talking about strength.
I plan on getting my wedding bands made in titanium, with fine laser etching/engraving on the inside of the band.
Or so I hope, at least.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
You use it on exhaust system to make the pipe work. It goes a lovely blue when you get it really hot.
You should see the spannies (expansion chambers) on a GP 2 stroke. Work of art and they can be made so thin they weigh about the same as a pack of cigarettes.
It doesn't get used for frames though, you need a really rigid platform for the suspension and extrudued aluminium alloys are best.
-- I am Jack's sig line.
Francium's the most active metal... i wonder why they named it after France... maybe becoz French ppl have the most... ummm... fun? action?
Mother-in-law? Can the ring stand up to her?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
I have a titaniun reinforced cheek, and not sure what the rod in my leg is made of but it might be too. Hopefully its nice and strong so that next time I get hit by a car it doesn't break. :)
According to the demographic market research it was determined this is what American's want.
and they sucked.
Frame: bendy as all heck, would return with nary a problem.
HINGES: due to the difficulty of welding titanium (so they explained to me) they had to use a milder-than-normal steel for the hinges. Bent like tin.
(so they said, but when I asked them how they welded the eyeloops & nose bridge together, they didn't know...)
So as long as the only thing getting bent on your glasses was the actual lens fram or nose bridge, everything was cool. But if the hinges were put under stress (like 99.999% of the time), you're screwed.
To their credit, it only took moderate bitching before they allowed me to return them for a pair of plain-old-spring-hinge glasses which are great.
-Styopa
ewwwww
From swordforum.com:
* Titantium - Most seem to think that the miracle metal would usually be "titanium" for swords. In actual fact, titanium is only a little better (and more expensive) than aluminum. (Both are usually in alloyed form, hence if a bar of titanium is purchased, it is usually a titanium alloy, similar to commercial aluminum being in alloyed form.) Both have a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel. However, in the form of swords, titanium-alloy has not reached the hardness of steel in order to be of any effective use as a real sword. The best application in swords would be a thick-edged stage prop - however, aluminum will do just as well with negligible difference in performance and a tremendous savings in price.
I'll take high-carbon differentially hardened dendritic steel in my weapons baby! Sure you have to oil it, but at least as weaponry goes it is primo
Sturm, Ruger & Co. is one of the largest producers of titanium in the US. They use it in golf clubs, firearms, and specialized castings
Oops I forgot to balance the equation. And I did sleep through a few lectures.
I don't know if your being sarcastic about your last sentence but i'm not a PhD just working on a masters and in Chem Engineering working on corrosion. You'll find engineers like to take a few shortcuts!
Veramocor
My wife and I got married this past January, and we went with Ti bands for several reasons. Most have been mentioned by other people already (virtually indestructable, really light, geek factor, etc.) but we also had our own twist to it. The ring style we bought
e ar tofgold-hs.html
http://titaniumera.com/order/order-goldinlays-h
was called the "Heart of Gold," and to continue with the HHGTG theme we had "DON'T PANIC" inscribed on the inside. We figure that getting married is about as predictable as hitchhiking, and no matter what may come those two words will be the single most useful piece of advice to remember.
Oh dear, I doubt the moderators of the above comment were being ironic when they gave you "insightful" :-)
I'd give you a funny though
That "antigravity" scam has been about for years.
Basically there was this dude on a fruitbreak called Bob Lazar who used to go around claiming to have worked on alien flying saucers stored at the skunk works in Area 51. He said the aliens were helping the US DoD by letting them study their flying saucer technology. He had diagrams of "flying saucer simulators" and stuff. He span this pseudo-science new-age clap-trap about the repulsive strong nuclear force "leaking" out of the atomic nucleus of element-115 (ununpentium) and using "gravity amplifiers" to boost this "anti-gravity" to create a gravity wave upon which the flying saucer would surf. The sorfing gravity waves is a semi-respectable scientific postulate. However the "anti-gravity" is not. The strong nuclear force != gravity. End of story.
You'd have more luck flying an aircraft with a buch of Yogic flyers holding new-age chackra amplification herbal piles healing crystals.
Or something.
Element 115 has been made in the lab. IIRC it's half life is the order of miliseconds at the most, so how you get enough of it in one place long enough to power an anti-gravity drive escapes me.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
I have a numnber of titanium pots and pans from ScanPan. They are truly amazing. Nothing seems sticks on titanium. It works much better than teflon. You can even use metal utensils without damage.
Hugo
Titanium is only truly useful in something where size doesn't matter. In a bike frame, sure, you can make it thicker and nobody's going to notice but for many other things where having it 3x as thick is going to matter titanium isn't as useful. A titanium knife that's as strong as a steel knige would have to be near 3x as thick...try cutting something with a 1/4" thick metal bar sometime.
--Mike--
Well, I'll tell you, I'm told be my neuro docs that I can't have MRI's...
and I'm not going to chance it.
Also, I went to get a CAT scan yesterday at USC county, and they search you as you go in to the hospital. I asked the cop to check my head with his metal wand and guess what?
I BEEEEPPPPED like crazy!
then I went thru the metal detector arch (lke at the airport) and it also went off.
Off to the CT scan...
I got my first look at the mesh they put in my dome and was absolutely suprized to find that it's almost half of my skull!!! and it has crazy patterns, of diamonds and squares and lines in it!!! Next doctors apointment I have I'm going to try to get a copy of it...and if thats not happening, off goes the digital elph.
Its all good, I'm just happy I'm still alive.
:-)
brock
Umm, ok...
What were you expecting?
The sexiest metal by far is... My BUNS OF STEEL!!!