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Working with Titanium
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Nick
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I tried cutting Ti with a jigsaw and it really didn't work well. I had 1.8mm sheet and used the best quality blades I could get at the lowest speed my jigsaw can go. The result was that the blades went blunt after about 3cm of cut and when I say "blunt" I mean no teeth left whatsoever! Laughing when the blade started to blunten, it also started cutting off track, which was very frustrating.

There was a post somewhere on the forum from a local supplier about special jigsaw blades that would cut Ti properly; you might search for that and try the blades.

Cutting Ti with a thin angle grinder disk is easy although it's very imprecise. I found I had to leave an average 2 or 3mm outside the line and then grind the part down to size. Due to all the sparks, its very hard to see what you are doing.

Tapping Ti is said to be fairly easy as long as the material is not particularly thick. I found heaps of good advice via Google on tapping but have not tried it yet. I suspect the taps will wear out just as fast as drills do.
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Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:39 pm 
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dyrodium
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I remember that post, i'll give it a look. Regarding tapping Ti my 5.5mm wedge is tapped along the top (from the bottom so spinners can't behead the bolts). You might be interested to check it out at the event. Smile
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Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:29 pm 
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muzzoid



Joined: 04 Apr 2005
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Location: ballina N.S.W


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im not sure if this helps but im going to quote some lines from my book kickin' bot about cutting titanium


quote:
Titanium has the ability to locally work-harden, which means that once the material reaches a certain temperature, it will harden in that spot. in our case, this unfortunatly happens in the exact spot your cutting, as a direct result of the cutting process. As the titanium begins to harden, the blade will have a tougher time with the material, whitch generates even more heat in a visious cycle. it becomes harder and harder to cut, and will end up taking you ten times longer to get through, and probobly several dull blades in the process

whats the solution? Make sure it doesnt heat up. This means cutting at a very low speed with a lot of lubrication. For example, given similarly sized peices of aluminium and titanium, what will take you one minute to cut in aluminium will take you 10 to 15 minutes to cut in titanium


it also recomends further down to use a jig saw, with the lowest speed on and the orbital setting on, and the cutting edge should be constantly flushed with WD-40 to keep it cool

hope this helped

Last edited by muzzoid on Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:20 pm; edited 2 times in total

Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:42 pm 
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dyrodium
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It did indeed thanks.
Another thing I noticed in that gallary of F-bomb build photos, when the disk/bar was being CNC milled, it was flooded with a clowdy white liquid, i'm assuming this is a coolant of some sort. Smile
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Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:58 pm 
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Nick
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The coolant is soluble oil - a mixture of around 1 part oil and 20 parts water. It would be hard to use that with a jigsaw as you would have to build a pump and recirculation system. Also very messy...

When I tried cutting Ti with a jigsaw, I used a spray cutting oil which (supposedly) does a better job than WD40, which is mostly kerosene. the other trick is to keep pushing the saw forwards hard so the blade is cutting agressively and not staying in one spot to cause work hardening. It didn't help me much Confused.
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Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:07 pm 
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dyrodium
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Cool. Why does the idea of waterjet cutting seem more and more tempting? Laughing
Is it true the titanium sparks when being cut by the water with the abrasion particles?
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Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:16 pm 
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Nick
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When I had my first parts cut, the waterjet guy remarked that the whole shop stopped to watch the show Cool I guess that proves you CAN make fire with water Laughing
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Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:18 pm 
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Knightrous
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quote:
I guess that proves you CAN make fire with water


Add a block of Sodium in a jug of water Cool
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Post Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:04 pm 
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