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I know nothing about metals--so here it goes. What is titanium? What are its qualities and why is it desirable (and expensive) for knife handles (Sebenza, Buck/Mayo, e.g.) Just wondering.
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Titanium questions
- Thread starter englishteacher
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I can offer you some general info!
Titanium is a metal that is not as abundant on earth as iron and it is a very strong material (harder to machine and such) than iron or steel. The relative rarity, high demand, and special processing requirrements no doubt are makor factors in titanium's high cost. I think that pound for pound titanium is much stronger than steel. So for a knife handle like the Mayo stuff, which IIRC are frame locks, you get a material which makes a kick butt material for a lock- the stuff is damned strong and will resist wear for a long time. Ti is also a "space age" material, so it has a lot of cool factor to it (Bob Terzuola was the first to use it on a tac folder with thhis ATCF in the mid '80s I believe). You can annodize titanium as well, which I think is awesome. Annodization looks great, and you can get a huge range of colors. Another reason for Ti's appeal on a knife is that it reduces weight- take 2 pieces of metal the same size, one Ti and one steel, and the Ti will be lighter. And then there is the galling factor too which I think of as icing on a cake. Titanium will gall (stick) to other metals, so a Ti frame/liner lock that engages the metal tang of a folder will stick to it a bit. I don't know how much galling plays into lock-up security, but it doesn't hurt at all.
I hope this helps!
Titanium is a metal that is not as abundant on earth as iron and it is a very strong material (harder to machine and such) than iron or steel. The relative rarity, high demand, and special processing requirrements no doubt are makor factors in titanium's high cost. I think that pound for pound titanium is much stronger than steel. So for a knife handle like the Mayo stuff, which IIRC are frame locks, you get a material which makes a kick butt material for a lock- the stuff is damned strong and will resist wear for a long time. Ti is also a "space age" material, so it has a lot of cool factor to it (Bob Terzuola was the first to use it on a tac folder with thhis ATCF in the mid '80s I believe). You can annodize titanium as well, which I think is awesome. Annodization looks great, and you can get a huge range of colors. Another reason for Ti's appeal on a knife is that it reduces weight- take 2 pieces of metal the same size, one Ti and one steel, and the Ti will be lighter. And then there is the galling factor too which I think of as icing on a cake. Titanium will gall (stick) to other metals, so a Ti frame/liner lock that engages the metal tang of a folder will stick to it a bit. I don't know how much galling plays into lock-up security, but it doesn't hurt at all.
I hope this helps!
Crayola,
Good post! And to think I was just going to say it is stronger and lighter than steel
. But as you mentioned it has a lot of properties that make it a good material for knife handles. It can even be used for blades, but it is not as good as steel.
So essentially what do we find in titanium? It is light, strong, and can be made a variety of colors by anodizing it. It is some great stuff, worth the extra money IMHO.
Good post! And to think I was just going to say it is stronger and lighter than steel
. But as you mentioned it has a lot of properties that make it a good material for knife handles. It can even be used for blades, but it is not as good as steel.So essentially what do we find in titanium? It is light, strong, and can be made a variety of colors by anodizing it. It is some great stuff, worth the extra money IMHO.
just wanted to clarify a bit. TI is a semi-precious metal (which means it's fairly rare). it has an excellent strength to weight ratio, so pound for pound it is one of the stroungest usable metals.
the big bit about machining ti is that it doesn't require heat treating. steal has two basic states (with out much overkill on the detail here) annealed and heat-treated. in it's annealed state steel if fairly soft. this is when you do the bulk of the machining. then you heat treat it and it gets harder. generly any steel with a carbon content of about.8 or higher can be heat treated. higher carbon generaly means higher finish hardness (with all the other alloying elements playing there part to change this basic equation). so steel can be machined soft then hardened; while titanium is as hard as it's going to get when you start working with it. the important thing to remeber is that steel will get much harder than titanuim is. this is why it makes better knife parts than blades.
plus it's lighter and like the man said very cool.
the big bit about machining ti is that it doesn't require heat treating. steal has two basic states (with out much overkill on the detail here) annealed and heat-treated. in it's annealed state steel if fairly soft. this is when you do the bulk of the machining. then you heat treat it and it gets harder. generly any steel with a carbon content of about.8 or higher can be heat treated. higher carbon generaly means higher finish hardness (with all the other alloying elements playing there part to change this basic equation). so steel can be machined soft then hardened; while titanium is as hard as it's going to get when you start working with it. the important thing to remeber is that steel will get much harder than titanuim is. this is why it makes better knife parts than blades.
plus it's lighter and like the man said very cool.
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as far as I was aware (according to my old chemistry teacher that is...) titanium isnt particularly exclusive or rare but is slightly more expensive than other metals because it is very difficult to extract, it involves several checmical reactions and cannot just be extracted by heat like iron can.
not ideal for knife blades from what Ive heard as it isnt too good on edge retention however excellent for handles and I always buy titanium spectacles because it is very springy, resilient and corrosion resistant and with the afformentioned strength it is virtually ideal for such applications
not ideal for knife blades from what Ive heard as it isnt too good on edge retention however excellent for handles and I always buy titanium spectacles because it is very springy, resilient and corrosion resistant and with the afformentioned strength it is virtually ideal for such applications
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It also makes good hip joints.
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this post got me interested and I decided to review what I learned yrs ago at school. The reason why your titanium costs so much is due to the extraction process which is something along the following lines:
1) Titanium ore is reacted with chlorine to produce titanium tetrachloride
2) for the extraction to work this must be pure so it is distilled
3) The purified titanium tetrachloride is then reacted with molten magnesium (almost twice as much molten magnesium is required as the amount of titanium that will be produced, the reaction is 2 moles of magnesium to 1 mole of titanium but magnesium is slightly lighter than titanium so it wont be quite 2:1 in weight terms) this reaction produces whats known as titanium sponge
4) the sponge is mashed with some gnarly mashing crusher type device into powder.
5. The powder is melted in either a Vacuum Arc Remelting furnace (VAR) or an electron beam furnace to produce around 10 tons of titanium per batch and a load of magnesium chloride type gas will be produced too
so as you can see the process is even more electricity hungry than the extraction of aluminium and also requires all of the initial chemical reactions and purification etc plus there is the addition of quite alot of molten magnesium (which will need to be performed in an oxygen free inert atmosphere to prevent the magnesium burning) So as well as buying the titamium you are also buying even more magnesium that is just used up in the extraction!
Some interesting backgroud, titanium was first discovered some 200 yrs ago but it was only around 50 yrs ago that a decent extraction process was discovered so it is quite a recent metal to become popular. It is actually the ninth most common metal in the earths crust but it is just expensive to extract.
Hope this was at least mildly interesting and not just sleep inducing!
1) Titanium ore is reacted with chlorine to produce titanium tetrachloride
2) for the extraction to work this must be pure so it is distilled
3) The purified titanium tetrachloride is then reacted with molten magnesium (almost twice as much molten magnesium is required as the amount of titanium that will be produced, the reaction is 2 moles of magnesium to 1 mole of titanium but magnesium is slightly lighter than titanium so it wont be quite 2:1 in weight terms) this reaction produces whats known as titanium sponge
4) the sponge is mashed with some gnarly mashing crusher type device into powder.
5. The powder is melted in either a Vacuum Arc Remelting furnace (VAR) or an electron beam furnace to produce around 10 tons of titanium per batch and a load of magnesium chloride type gas will be produced too
so as you can see the process is even more electricity hungry than the extraction of aluminium and also requires all of the initial chemical reactions and purification etc plus there is the addition of quite alot of molten magnesium (which will need to be performed in an oxygen free inert atmosphere to prevent the magnesium burning) So as well as buying the titamium you are also buying even more magnesium that is just used up in the extraction!
Some interesting backgroud, titanium was first discovered some 200 yrs ago but it was only around 50 yrs ago that a decent extraction process was discovered so it is quite a recent metal to become popular. It is actually the ninth most common metal in the earths crust but it is just expensive to extract.
Hope this was at least mildly interesting and not just sleep inducing!
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That was actually very informative, great post!
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One correction to the notion above that titanium is stronger than steel. Titanium is stronger than steel for its weight, not absolutely. Given the same volume, steel will weigh more but be stronger.
Joe
Joe
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Just as a point, Crayola is technically correct. However, his comment gives me the impression that titanium is not abundant. For kasparate to say it is rare is not true; it is quite abundant (though about half of the known supply is in Russia). For me, titanium makes a great knife because, though not as strong as steel, it is quite strong and very light and doesn't rust is not a problem with Ti. It makes a great handles for an EDC.
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Now, your gettin' out of hand! 
We should do a "taste test" of various materials - G-10; carbon fiber and titanium, all of them polished or beadblasted.
Say it's beadblasted. My guess is that Titanium is grippier that G-10, G-10 grippier than Carbon Fiber. Does this dovetail wtih anyone else's experience?
We should do a "taste test" of various materials - G-10; carbon fiber and titanium, all of them polished or beadblasted.
Say it's beadblasted. My guess is that Titanium is grippier that G-10, G-10 grippier than Carbon Fiber. Does this dovetail wtih anyone else's experience?
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I second what theBadGuy said. Maybe because that picture portrays them as some hand made, custom peice that has no "medical agency" affiliation. Like blackmarket organs, you know. They look cool though, I just cant imagine the gnarly intersection between bone and titanium. Whats that coating on them, it looks like my diamond sharpeners surface except way more grippy. Why havent we seen the same treatment on knife handles?
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The surface is textured so the bone material can knit itself to the titanium, one thing no one mentionioned about titanium, it's hypoallergenic, wish me luck guys I'm goin' in for more knee surgery at 11:00 am this morning.
BTW I came across the hip joints at a place I worked, they were in a scrap pile and I needed a drift pin to align a motor, they fit the bill perfectly.
BTW I came across the hip joints at a place I worked, they were in a scrap pile and I needed a drift pin to align a motor, they fit the bill perfectly.
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good luck with the surgery
the hypoallergenic properties make great watch bracelets and implants
T. Erdelyi, you put those back in right now before your doctor finds out you've been taken 'em out and playing with 'em!
lol!