I Blackened Titanium For Real, As Dark As Zirc

Joneserlax said:
I know this is an older thread but I just want to comment on this as I feel Pittknife may have misspoke a bit, specifically by saying heat until red hot. I'm not well known (on here) but have a good bit of experience esp with modifications, patinas, anodizing etc.

I actually was having a lot of success with a mirror polished and heat anodized piece of ti (the bolster on my spyderco myrtle) heated pretty evenly to blue, until deciding this looked easy enough and dark would be cool. About 15-20 cycles later and nothing. Looks pretty awful in fact. And I feel a bit stupid as, from experience, I've learned that when heating something beyond a certain point (from purple-blue to cyan to basically white) you'll no longer get a color reaction. So after heating red hot I got no change in color except for a whitish blue, even with the wire wheel. And as Pittknife describes changes in color I'm pretty sure he did not heat until actually red hot and I took him too literally. Now the only way I'll get any color is to sand this off.

So basically I feel like for this to work youd have to keep the color around a deep blue, wire brush that off, and never heat it up beyond this point. But hey, thats just what I am seeing with my eyes
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I hear it up till red hot. There are plenty of folks that have tried this technique and achieved the same readily a I have. A couple of makers have there little twist to this process but it is basically the same, you heat it up till it is red hot and then do your quenching. The grade if titanium makes a lot of difference.

My process is a modified version of the one Richard Rogers and frank Fischer taught me, and it turns out lee Williams and a few other makers have their own process as well but they all heat it up till its red hot. it may be your wheel that is the issue or material.
 
Could be the Windex. The less Ammonia the less it should work.
Try to get the original formula if available or add extra ammonia yourself.
 
Okay thank you Pittknife, and thank you for not taking what I said the wrong way which, looking at it now, could have sounded offensive. I just for whatever reason have had a lot of trouble with this, but will keep experimenting and hopefully get it. Funny, during this time I actually found a way (accidentally) to blacken steel screws by heating them up and then touching them with your bare fingers. I knew it would muddle them a bit (usually a negative thing), but if you do it right, maybe run those fingers through your hair to get some extra oil :barf: and wipe them across quickly but with good pressure and it will start to go dark black. A bit weird, but hey.. it works
 
I need to give the ammonia a try. I've been doing a similar process on both CP and 6-4 Ti using clean 10w-30 motor oil. Doesn't hold up great on smooth surfaces, but a blasted surface takes it very nicely and is extremely durable. Achieves more of a dark carbon gray look on 6-4 and thicker pieces, but thin pieces can be blackened very well. Using a propane torch with swirl flame, get to orange-yellow hot and hold there for a minute or so, then immediately dunk in heated oil. Cold oil tends to not take as well and can cause the oxide layer to flake off, especially on non-blasted surfaces. Once it's cooled, I let it sit and air cool to room temperature, then clean with acetone. Repeat the process as necessary. I've been able to get black surfaces that are close to zirc, and grade 2 is easy to get black.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEHx92tM3RG/?taken-by=bladegenetics
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDqwL9Is3e3/?taken-by=bladegenetics
 
Pittknife said:
Hi Guys,

So after 2 months worth of research and testing I finally was able to make my own process of blackening titanium. This is not oxyclean, oxyclean does not make titanium dark black and you end up with uncontrollable colors. It looks cool, but is too inconsistent with different pieces of Ti and doesn't get dark like zirc. This is not a plating or any other process you need major industrial equipment for.

I'm beyond excited about this, the kwaiken below was the first full knife mod I did it on. I will be using this process on my custom knives I'm making.

*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.

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Just do a utility patent. I think it’s almost free.
 
Welcome Spark001.

This is a two year old thread and long finished. Look at the date of the posts before resurrecting one that is long dead.
 
Hello.

Sorry If I am resurrecting old post.
I found another similar procedures like WD-40 or oil.
I used Ti 6Al-4V and it needs several times to repeat this procedure (5 or 15 times).

1)
At first variant I used mixture of watter and ordinary table salt in a circa 50 to 50 ratio.
It is normal, that most salt crystals remains at the bottom.
I heated titanium piece to red glow and then dipped it in mixture, even in crystals at the bottom. Each time when you reheat salty wet piece, white salt coating is formed on piece (when watter is evaporated). That’s normal.
Somewhere in the middle of this procedure, you can clean piece in clear watter and with fingers remove white coating to check the piece.


2)
My second variant was also similar.
But I used simple melted wax/parafin from white candles.
Again reheated and dipped piece in the wax.

I consider myself the result from first variant is better.
But maybe it is only subjective or affected by some circumstances.
All in all, resulting titanium coating is almost black – very very dark grey, coherent and quite thick.
 
Welcome vitonash. As I pointed out to spark001, looking t the dates will show you tat the last post was January 2020.

If you click on OndrejM's logo and then look at his postings, you will see that this was the only post he ever made. He isn't going to be answering your question.

What the thread was about is how to put a black coating on Ti. It is similar to getting a black coating on most other metals. You either oxidize it with some chemical reaction, or coat it with something like burned wax. All black surface coatings are only a few millionths of an inch thick and will run/scratch/wear off. They look great on wall hangers and show pieces, but most aren't very durable of permanent. Some are better than others, like Parkerizing which is done on steel guns and some hunting knives.
The other common method is a hard coating like Cerakote.
 
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