Is the Chinese titanium in your knife really titanium?

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Grizzly3

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Have you seen the story yet where the airlines bought some Chinese titanium for parts and are now discovering the titanium was counterfeited. Sound familiar?
I can't help but wonder if the titanium in our knives is the real thing.

MSN

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The article said that the Ti was real and the documentation was fake. I have to imagine the certification process for aerospace parts is very expensive so if a company can bypass that they'll come away with a higher profit.

Actual fake parts are a bigger problem. Planes have crashed and people have died. And there's no easy way to find them all.

 
HJK said:
Are you saying that.....some businesses in China......lie?
You know how you say "buy from China" in Mandarin Chinese?
You say, " Caveat Emptor" which is latin legalese for "Good Luck!"

What's an easy test for titanium?
I just wouldn't necessarily trust the "E.Z. Titanium Test Kit" from China...... ;)
Click to expand...
Just hit it with a chop saw. Look for white sparks.
 
I have a Boye folding boat knife, that is made from cobalt (blade) and titanium (marlinspike). It doesn't rust, and it doesn't interfere with a compass at all, so I am confident that the titanium is real. :)
 
Wouldn't a magnet tell you pretty quickly? Guess you would have to take the knife apart and test pieces individually.
 
From the link I read, a magnet test could be misleading because sometimes titanium legitimately can have magnetic additives, and of course aluminum isn't magnetic either.
there are several tests and I think you can't rely on just one.
One of the tests is the reputation of the maker and the supplier.
I'm sure there are good sources in China, and I'm sure there are bad ones.
We have quite a few members here who know a lot about titanium and make superb blades out of them.
I'm sure they have much better information.
 
HJK said:
From the link I read, a magnet test could be misleading because sometimes titanium legitimately can have magnetic additives, and of course aluminum isn't magnetic either.
there are several tests and I think you can't rely on just one.
One of the tests is the reputation of the maker and the supplier.
I'm sure there are good sources in China, and I'm sure there are bad ones.
We have quite a few members here who know a lot about titanium and make superb blades out of them.
I'm sure they have much better information.
Click to expand...

Busted... Yeah, I didn't bother reading. lol

However, I did consider both of those scenarios. Figured aluminum is pretty easy to discern with a tap of the finger nail and a small amount of steel additive would have a noticeably weak pull on the magnet.
 
I worked in the power industry and many companies did not want chinese content for this reason.
 
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