# Titanium experiment.



## akjeff (Jul 8, 2021)

Bought a couple of 6AL-4V Ti drops on ebay, just to see what it's like to turn it. The pieces were 1.5"x4" bar stock. My lathe is the humble Craftsman/Atlas 12x36. Cutter was a CCMT 32.51 ( .015" nose radius ) in a 1/2" shank tool holder in a AXA tool post. The AXA is mounted on a solid plinth( no compound ). Started out at 266 RPM and .0042" per rev feed rate( 104 SFM ). Depth of cut was .0125". Before each pass, I painted the work piece with a light coat of Anchor Lube. That cut really well, so after taking several passes, I upped the RPM to 418 and increased the feed rate to .0048" per rev for 137 SFM at the final diameter of 1.250". Didn't see a noticeable change in surface finish between the different speeds. After each cut, the work piece never got more than slightly warm to the touch. There was not much chip breaking action happening. At the slower speed, there was none, just a big continuous brillo pad. At the higher speed, it would break off every couple feet or so. I just swatted it away with a paint brush during the cut.

If the center drilling was any indication, I suspect that making a hole in this stuff will not be much fun. In order to center drill, it took a whole lot of peck/clear/lube cycles. Flood coolant would probably be handy for drilling.

The photos are simply a test piece/cuts, and not meant for or to be anything other than practice. Fun to do, and a good learning experience. Will have to explore it further.


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## Aukai (Jul 8, 2021)

Looks like it came out pretty good. I'm going to do a Damascus Titanium shot glass when my lathe is back up, and put heat to it to have color changes. I did a 316 polished SS shot glass that came out nice, so we'll see.


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## mmcmdl (Jul 8, 2021)

Tiny steel wool chips in Titanium will light up just like Magnesium .  Hopefully not in your chip pan .


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## Aukai (Jul 8, 2021)

I've heard that, someone here might have done it  Kinda scary though...


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## mmcmdl (Jul 8, 2021)

My boss did it years ago . Large ring taking wuzzy cuts . Ring came out of the chuck and landed on a wooden lathe platform . Burned it thru to the concrete !  Don't throw water onto it either .


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## Aukai (Jul 8, 2021)

Mister would be ok?


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## mmcmdl (Jul 8, 2021)

Aukai said:


> Mister would be ok?


For coolant ? Yes . But if it does ever light up , water is adding O2 which is quite exciting to see !


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## mmcmdl (Jul 8, 2021)

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						titanium fire - Google Search
					





					www.google.com
				




While it is hard to ignite , when it does ...............................................


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## akjeff (Jul 8, 2021)

mmcmdl said:


> Tiny steel wool chips in Titanium will light up just like Magnesium .  Hopefully not in your chip pan .


Glad you brought that up! Definitely cleared out the swarf on a regular basis! Before I play with this stuff much more, I'd like to get a Class D fire extinguisher for the shop. Even with that, I'm still going to clear the chip pan regularly!


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## darkzero (Jul 8, 2021)

mmcmdl said:


> __
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> ...


Nah, It's not that hard to ignite. I've done it a few times on the lathe. Just need to be good at causing it to ignite.


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## Aukai (Jul 8, 2021)

I'll try to avoid that.


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## markba633csi (Jul 8, 2021)

Firework makers have known about titanium for some time, it's rather like iron filings in terms of sparks
-M


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