Engraving titanium advice
- Thread starter Ian A
- Start date
silvermon
Member
I am not strong on titanium, but the first thing anyone will need to know to help you is what type of titanium? There is a broad variety, and the exact type determines malleability and machinability.
i'd surely think .25" thick would be a bugger to bend without some sort of hydraulic power press. i got a batch of "commercial" grade. it cuts well. out of the box it has a pleasant satin finish. i never polished the stuff. did xperiment with annodizing. got some cool, but subtle color effects that way.
handengraver
Elite Cafe Member
I would never challenge myself with such task.
I know it is lately fashionable to make jewelry out of metals like chrome vanadium, stainless steel, etc. mostly in industrial mass production (China).
I would never wear such jewelry, gold and silver was worn from the earliest times, because of the beneficial effects that such precious metals were believed to have.
During decades of my experience I often helped clients to take off rings that were too tight on their swollen fingers. There was a special tool to do it, but sometimes I had to find a faster solution, even by destroying the ring.
I wonder if someone has a steel or vanadium or titanium ring on a swollen and discolored finger, how can that ring ever be removed?
To remove gold and silver rings, a ring cutting tool is typically used. It has a circular metal fine toothed blade like wood working tools. This saves the finger and allows the ring to be repaired or resized as needed. The ring can be removed with one to two cuts depending on the ring and the medical situation.
Tungsten carbide and ceramic rings can be removed but the process destroys the rings. There's a small device call the "Ring Cracker" that has a hard point that gets screwed down onto the ring creating a spot of pinpoint pressure that cracks the ring.
Stainless steel, titanium, etc. need to be cut off using a cut off wheel on a rotary tool. Aluminum oxide wheels can be used but the friction will generate a tremendous amount of heat. The better option is a diamond cut off wheel which should cut faster and therefore produce less heat. I cut a stainless steel ring off of a guy using a diamond wheel but the skin underneath the ring was so raw (from the ring being stuck for a long time) that he still said it was very painful as the ring heated up. He periodically had to put his hand under cold water. Harder materials like this will take two cuts to remove a section of the shank since they are so hard to bend open with just one cut.
An older method of ring removal was to wrap the finger in dental floss in order to compress the flesh enough for the ring to be slid off. There is a newer tool, the "Ring Rescue", that has a small chamber that acts as a pressure cuff. You can pump the bulb and apply pressure to the finger to compress the flesh and then slide the ring off.
At the jewelry store where I work, we've found that Windex is the best lubricant for using on a stuck ring that doesn't need more drastic intervention. Windex won't hurt the metal (gold, silver, platinum) and it is safe on untreated, non-porous and/or organic gems. Without going down the colored gemstone rabbit hole, I would be cautious using anything on amber, opal, pearl, and turquoise to name the most common ones that come to mind.
Tungsten carbide and ceramic rings can be removed but the process destroys the rings. There's a small device call the "Ring Cracker" that has a hard point that gets screwed down onto the ring creating a spot of pinpoint pressure that cracks the ring.
Stainless steel, titanium, etc. need to be cut off using a cut off wheel on a rotary tool. Aluminum oxide wheels can be used but the friction will generate a tremendous amount of heat. The better option is a diamond cut off wheel which should cut faster and therefore produce less heat. I cut a stainless steel ring off of a guy using a diamond wheel but the skin underneath the ring was so raw (from the ring being stuck for a long time) that he still said it was very painful as the ring heated up. He periodically had to put his hand under cold water. Harder materials like this will take two cuts to remove a section of the shank since they are so hard to bend open with just one cut.
An older method of ring removal was to wrap the finger in dental floss in order to compress the flesh enough for the ring to be slid off. There is a newer tool, the "Ring Rescue", that has a small chamber that acts as a pressure cuff. You can pump the bulb and apply pressure to the finger to compress the flesh and then slide the ring off.
At the jewelry store where I work, we've found that Windex is the best lubricant for using on a stuck ring that doesn't need more drastic intervention. Windex won't hurt the metal (gold, silver, platinum) and it is safe on untreated, non-porous and/or organic gems. Without going down the colored gemstone rabbit hole, I would be cautious using anything on amber, opal, pearl, and turquoise to name the most common ones that come to mind.
707chrisa
Member
You can forge titanium at bright yellow heat . I don't like to hand forge the stuff it's rely tuff to move . Ti bends well with torch heat at a bright yellow heat . You can get some oxidation colors with the torch too, go to a red heat or less for this. The stuff is rely tough just let it air cool. You will need an oxy acetylene torch with a small rosebud or a large welding tip and may be a small tip for coloring.
my plasma torch would do that very quickly !
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