Randy McDaniel shows the forging of a titanium knife. Edited down to show the main points in order to fit in less than the 10 minute format. After showing how he forged a titanium sword on YouTube a lot of comments were received about this material and how it is forged and how it holds up. Hopefully this will clear up some of the myths of this material and allow people to have fun with it.
Tal Harris adds: titanium will burn if you get the heat high enough. It especially likes to react with iron scale in a gas furnace at high temperatures. Putting water on burning titanium is not good. Baking soda is the preferred extinguisher. A class D fire extinguisher is a good thing to have around. When water is applied to a titanium fire, the reaction disassociates the hydrogen from the oxygen, thus making a bigger fire in an uncontrolled manner. The grinding dust will also burn.
There are also quite a few alloys of titanium, some with phase changes at certain temperatures and some without. This can make a BIG difference on how the piece reacts to forging. Knowing what businesses there are in your area could give clues as to what alloy you are finding. Chemical processing equipment frequently uses CP or commercially pure titanium. Aerospace applications get into other alloys with 6-4 (6% aluminum-4% vanadium) being the most common.
WARNING: Forging, knife making, titanium and all of the shown operations are dangerous and should not be done with out proper training and the supervision of a knowlegable adult.
See more of Randy's shop and works at
www.drgnfly4g.com
