Grinding Titanium

Ban

Ban

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Oct 14, 1998
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What are speed and belts are you guys using to grind Titanium? I find that grinding Ti kills my belts in short order even though it is much softer than hardened steel. I went through two ceramic belts just roughing in my primary grind on a 4" long .200 thick blade.

Looking to find a better solution because that gets expensive real fast.
 
I hear you, I have gone through 3 friction saw blades on one .090 8x12 piece! I go through one new 60 grit blaze belt for each knife.

I'm new and still learning a lot though. I was reading my Loveless book and he has some great tips on saving belts. I'm going to start using a used belt to cut my initial steeper bevel then switch to a new one for the main grind.
 
Cuts like hot knife in butter with 80 grit abrasive.
No time & material wasted and no fire hazard.
 
H2Oknife said:
Cuts like hot knife in butter with 80 grit abrasive.
No time & material wasted and no fire hazard.
Click to expand...

Do you use an 80 grit ceramic belt? Waterjet?

The fire hazard with titanium scares me, I like to hang out in my shop for a while after I'm done with it and would like to cut down my chance of fire. I know I try to get every bit of steel dust cleaned up first, but that only helps a little.

I find it grinds easily but it is hard on the belts.
 
Make sure your belts aren't loading up, easy to do with ti in my experience. Never have trouble cutting it on the bandsaw. Not like cutting carbon fiber :D
 
The one time I ground titanium I used a bench grinder ... which is a very BAD choice. This would fall under the heading "don't try this at home".

- Greg
 
I'm working on a project involving water-jetting titanium products (to be announced in the future) and would like to know how to apply final finishing at the shop. So in that respect I share Ban's inquiry - what would be the best hardware, belts, etc for final beveling and surface finishes?
 
I love working with Ti. Yes, it kills belts. It'll destroy a bench-grinder wheel almost as fast as aluminum. Plasma will cut it nicely, but beware ignition. Hard on band saw blades. I use a less fine band saw blade than recommended. It's tough on the blade but using the proper TPI was destroying them even quicker. Make sure nothing flammable is anywhere near the Ti sparks and definitely wear a good respirator.
 
I've been grinding titanium a lot lately. The key seems to be keeping the blade cool, running the belts slow and rough grinding with a coarse belt.

I dip the blade every pass, sometimes every half a pass to avoid work hardening. When this happens, the blade wants to sort of skip across the belt. I also use 36 or 60 grit ceramic belts run at about 20 - 30%. My general rule is that I never want to see sparks when grinding titanium. If you see sparks, your belt speed is probably too fast.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I will give the slower speed a try as soon as I get a grinder with speed control. Lots of hot sparks will be flying in the meantime.
 
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