I Blackened Titanium For Real, As Dark As Zirc

Boy, this sure would be a wonderful gift to someone like me ! It seems to me I was told that since I live in Canada shipping to me has been band. That black with the depth of colouring sure would be another amazing application. Still not every process can be a gift but still can be applied by the maker.
Thanks. Frank
 
Alright guys,

Here is how I do Black Titanium, there are a couple other makers that have done a similar process Pat Hammond, Lee Williams, Richard Rogers & Frank Fischer.
Have fun and it's a lot of work to get this right.

first prepare the surface by cleaning it thoroughly.

Then I use a propane torch (not MAP, the map gas heats up too hot and warps the Ti) to heat up the Ti section by section until red hot. This usually produces a mutlicolored effect ended with light blueish hue.

I immediately dunk it in a cool solution I made using distilled water & windex.

*Wire-brushing, I have a steel wire wheel I modified, making it less dense by clipping the wires leaving only some long strainds.

I take the part while wet and do a light brush on the wire wheel, not applying any pressure, just enough to remove the colors.

I repeat this process one more time.

By this time, the Ti will have some dark spots and some colored spots. This begins the next phase.

I heat up the colored spots to red hot, and give the rest of the scale some heat but not to red hot.

I dunk to cool off & then do the light brushing.

I repeat until all the color spots are gone and everything is consistent black.

This can take anywhere from 10 cycles to 20 cycles. If I want it lighter at the end, I just brush a lot more until I get some fading, but the finish is super durable.
 
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^ I call this finish "Organic Black". It really does wear well and looks great in person. Thanks for sharing, your works looks excellent! :cool:
 
Very interesting Mike, similar to Zirc, I guess that's not surprising.

Thanks for sharing, will have to play around with this some.
 
Thanks for sharing. If I ever get around to using Ti I will definitely try this.
 
Thanks to you and to Fischer & Rogers!
I have a question since you insisted on working by sections to spread the black step by step. Do you think is it possible to have a whole quench at an even red heat, instead working by spots?
 
stezann said:
Thanks to you and to Fischer & Rogers!
I have a question since you insisted on working by sections to spread the black step by step. Do you think is it possible to have a whole quench at an even red heat, instead working by spots?
Click to expand...

if you do that, you will still have spots, and you can get warp.
 
Pittknife said:
Alright guys,

After getting permission I am posting my process for Black Titanium. All that I ask is that if you use it, give me, Frank Fischer & Richard Rogers credit for it. I was only able to create this process because they helped teach me theirs.

Have fun and it's a lot of work to get this right.

first prepare the surface by cleaning it thoroughly.

Then I use a propane torch (not MAP, the map gas heats up too hot and warps the Ti) to heat up the Ti section by section until red hot. This usually produces a mutlicolored effect ended with light blueish hue.

I immediately dunk it in a cool solution I made using distilled water & windex.

*Wire-brushing, I have a steel wire wheel I modified, making it less dense by clipping the wires leaving only some long strainds.

I take the part while wet and do a light brush on the wire wheel, not applying any pressure, just enough to remove the colors.

I repeat this process one more time.

By this time, the Ti will have some dark spots and some colored spots. This begins the next phase.

I heat up the colored spots to red hot, and give the rest of the scale some heat but not to red hot.

I dunk to cool off & then do the light brushing.

I repeat until all the color spots are gone and everything is consistent black.

This can take anywhere from 10 cycles to 20 cycles. If I want it lighter at the end, I just brush a lot more until I get some fading, but the finish is super durable.
Click to expand...
Sweet. Thank you for sharing! Doesn't seem too complicated but very involved.

Windex contains Ammonia which is a good Nitrogen source and could react with the hot Ti surface to Ti Nitrite. When skimming online how Ammonia and Ti react it's not really clear cut to me some mention corrosion or embridlement and other things. Anyways Ammonia seems to be the main substance in that reaction and adding more might decrease the required number of cycles or create some other interesting effect.
Now I need to get me a torch. :D
 
Many thanks to you Pittknife and Mr. Fischer and Mr. Rogers for your generosity. Wait... Mr. Rogers neighborhood?... I crack me up. :D
 
Thank you for sharing
I haven't seen Windex over here but I have seen simular products.
Wikipedia gives this:
"The Sam Wise patent[clarification needed] #3,463,735 lists example formulae, one of which is 4.0% isopropyl alcohol (a highly volatile solvent) 1% ethylene glycol monobutyl ether (a less volatile solvent), 0.1% sodium lauryl sulfate (a surfactant), 0.01% tetrasodium pyrophosphate (a water softener), 0.05% of 28% ammonia, 1% of a dye solution, and 0.01% perfume. This formula was not only less expensive to manufacture, but allowed the product to be packaged in glass bottles and dispensed with a plastic sprayer."

So is amonia the working ingredient?
 
Thank you for posting & sharing info - I'll bookmark this thread so I can find it later.

Ken H>
 
Hey Pitt,
Just a quick question... what is your ratio for your Windex/water solution?
 
Hengelo_77 said:
Thank you for sharing
I haven't seen Windex over here but I have seen simular products.
Wikipedia gives this:
"The Sam Wise patent[clarification needed] #3,463,735 lists example formulae, one of which is 4.0% isopropyl alcohol (a highly volatile solvent) 1% ethylene glycol monobutyl ether (a less volatile solvent), 0.1% sodium lauryl sulfate (a surfactant), 0.01% tetrasodium pyrophosphate (a water softener), 0.05% of 28% ammonia, 1% of a dye solution, and 0.01% perfume. This formula was not only less expensive to manufacture, but allowed the product to be packaged in glass bottles and dispensed with a plastic sprayer."

So is amonia the working ingredient?
Click to expand...
Could be Ammonia, but was just guessing.

Easiest way to figure out would be to try 2 identical pieces of titanium and dunk one in the original version and the second in a solution spiked with additional ammonia (surprisingly cheap at the rain forest site). If the second one needs less cycles before turning dark we have the answer.
Even better would be to try more than 2 dilutions. Maybe one original, one with 3 fold Ammonia and then one with 10 fold the original concentration.

I have some left over titanium but no time to buy ammonia and torch before I go out of country for 2 months.
:(

Note: there are a couple of different windex versions I saw today at home despot. Would be good to know which one exactly was used to achieve what's shown in the OP.
 
Excellent! thanks for sharing. I've worked Ti a bit but don't know much about it. Do you know if heat would affect the spring on a lock bar?
 
G'day Tim, I did a similar thing on that framelock I had at the Melb Show and it didn't seem to affect the lockbar at all. There are pics of it on my instagram

Alistair
 
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