Can niobium be wire inlaid?

[SarahLadd]

Has anyone tried this?

 

[martin850]

I tried it. It can be laid but it loses its colour and ends up looking like steel.

 

[Chujybear]

I tried it. It can be laid but it loses its colour and ends up looking like steel.

Can’t you just run a current on it to dial in some colour again?

 

[silvermon]

Can’t you just run a current on it to dial in some colour again?

It would depend greatly on the metal it is inlaid to. The Niobium is anodized in a plating bath compounded to the color and the Niobium. The bath will most certainly cause a color change to most metals the wire would be inlaid to. Unlike anodized aluminum, Niobium starts losing it's color as soon as heat is applied. Depending on the color, it can happen at low enough heat inputs of the type you would encounter just bending the wire (ie, inlaying it.).

 

[PS_Bond]

The Niobium is anodized in a plating bath compounded to the color and the Niobium.

Mask off, hook your anodiser to the metal ferrule of a paintbrush and paint the colour on with the brush wetted in electrolyte.

 

[silvermon]

Mask off, hook your anodiser to the metal ferrule of a paintbrush and paint the colour on with the brush wetted in electrolyte.

Brush plating is more difficult than it appears to be. I have brush plating equipment sophisticated enough for mil-spec work. I have done detailed work like what is suggested here. The results won’t be what is expected.

 

[PS_Bond]

It's not plating, it's anodising. Entirely different process (and in many ways far simpler than plating). Brush anodising of reactive metals is fairly well known in many circles.

And I do brush plating too.

Try it.