Patina for titanium

Hi Guys,

Very interesting discussion, What if rather than drilling through and peening, you actually threaded and tapped and screwed your bezel on a rod in place (maybe with a little locktite or something)? The The peening might be problematic for two reasons. Peening inside of the ring isn't going to give much room to work, either to peen or counter sink a hole. The other prob would be for your CZ. They don't like lots of pounding (it would be on the opposite side of hammering your rivet). Or would you trivet your finding prior to setting your CZ?

While you're at it, I don't believe the CZ will hold up to the heat for blackening the Ti if the Ti needs to glow bright red to turn black. In fact, your silver setting wouldn't make it through either. Maybe(?) white gold would, which might be a better choice than silver.

Also, are you locked in on the bezel cup idea? The CZ would likely be more brilliant in a pronged setting, which you could purchase in sterling or white gold, and solder to your rod. But it sounds like you have a look you're after, more like the stone flush mounted in the Ti. If that's the case, you might want to look into getting an appripriately sized piece of white gold or silver tube, You could set your CZ right down into it by drilling a seat with your stone setting burr. (Make sure to fab your rod end prior to setting the CZ.) You could than drill your seat in the Ti to the OD of the tube and a smaller hole for your rod.

Not sure if any of this makes sense or has any bearing. Hope you keep us posted on your experiments and share some pix.

All the best, Phil
 
I had considered threading the setting as well. If I peen in the setting I will install the setting and then set the CZ in it. That way I am not banging on the stone. If I go with a setting (bezel) then I wont need to heat the stone in the ring to get the zirconium to turn black.
I took a look at some titanium rings with stones set in them and they all had a very small gold bezel. It was just a tube that was peened on the back and the stone set into the top. From the back you could see the bottom of the stone. The gold was terribly in my opinion as it made the stone look like it was yellow against a silver colored ring. I think I will use a small stainless steel tube for my bezel. I am going to find one with a very thin sidewall so I can shape it easily. Since she wants the stone to be set flush with the top of the ring a pronged setting wouldn't work out for me.
 
Stainless will be a bit tough to set your stone in. It's brittle and stiff. But since you're getting a few CZs you'll be able to try it. I agree yellow gold would look awkward. I was suggesting white gold. Platinum would even be better, but that would run you a few bucks. :cool:
 
Here's an example of a prong setting in a titanium ring with mokume. This is laser welded, but in theory, you could drill a hole in a zirconium ring and peen it from the inside. It won't be as strong, but it might be possible.
 

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I've made a whole bunch of titanium rings, and I usually use a torch and get the metal to a dull or medium red. The intense red starts to develop a whitish titanium oxide, which can be taken off with a light polish and usually leaves the dark gray to black oxide layer on the metal.
 
I was going to recommend zirconium too. I often see it with a beautiful dark grey/black sheen.
 
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