Heat anidizing titanium

A

aaron.steele.9026

Joined
Apr 25, 2015
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I won't to start heat anidizing titanium and I'm worried about how the heat will affect the material. Is there a proper way to cool heat anodized titanium to prevent anything negative from happening to things such as the lock bar? I'm going to practice on a zt 808 so I'm not real worried about the detent ball.

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Heat? Don't you color titanium by electrolysis and varying voltage?
 
Anodizing is done with electricity. While some people say "Heat anodizing", that makes no sense.


Heat coloring titanium is heating the metal to get various colors. It forms oxides on the surface. It will not harm the titanium. This is done with either a controlled oven or a small torch.

Anodizing titanium with electrical voltage is done by immersing it in an electrolyte ( salt water or coca-cola) and applying a DC voltage between 12 and 100 volts. The amperage as well as the voltage will make the metal various colors, starting at yellow and going up to royal purple.

Use the search engine in the stickies to look up the many threads on "heat coloring titanium;, and "anodizing titanium".

Here isnthe search engine:
https://cse.google.com/cse/publicurl?cx=012217165931761871935:iqyc7cbzhci
 
I would like to know how to get nice tight flames like strider does

I think heat sinks and a fine torch is how they do it?
Mabey Stacy knows
I tired flaming some pocket clips and it's hard to get tight lines due to the heat bleeding through
 
Do you know they are doing it with heat? If I was doing it and wanted a tight lined pattern is do it in electrolyte and use a vinyl pattern.
 
I have used a torch to anodize Ti beads in the past. I thought that they looked great at the time, but have since started using the electricity method. I get much better results and can pretty much get the exact colour that I want. All I use is a plastic or glass container lined with aluminum foil, a bunch of 9 volts with varying levels of charge, some alligator clips, and tapwater with about a tablespoon of baking soda as an electrolyte. Hook the 9 volts up in series, and attach the negative lead to a corner of the foil that is not submerged. Then attach the positive lead to the piece of titanium. Make sure when you are anodizing that anything on the positive end is titanium. Some people make fancy titanium hooks, but I just don't let my alligator clip touch the water and clip it to another part of the titanium to re-anodize the last little spot. If possible, polish the titanium before you anodize it, make it as shiny as possible. When you anodize on top of a bad surface finish, it only makes it look worse! Just remember to do a scrap piece of titanium first to make sure it's the colour that you want.

I hope this helps! Have fun.
 
As supposed, making anodized patterns, letters, or shapes is usually done by masking and anodizing.

Say you wanted blue flames on a green background. Anodize the piece green, clean and mask off all but the flames, and anodize at the higher voltage needed to get the blue desired. Clean off the pieces and you have the pattern in two colors.

Using a torch gives mottled and drifting colors.
 
The biggest advantage of heat coloring vs electricity is durability. The oxides from electric anodizing can be easily buffed off. Heat color oxides requires much more effort to remove.

The key to both processes is surface preparation and cleanliness. For example, don't ever try to heat color or anodize before removing fingerprints. The result looks very bad and can be spotted from across the room.

Some knifemakers are using a combination of heat coloring and electrical anodizing to achieve beautiful results on Timascus™.

Chuck
 
I have been confused about this.. I watched one of John grimsmos youtube videos where he anodized some titanium knife handles. He put them in a tank applied, various voltages, and when they came out they were all still grey. he then soaked them in various dye. Is this not the same thing?


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Here is blasting and heat...
20160507_173627-1_zpshdanbdhg.jpg


Heat variations.
2016-04-12%2013.11.35_zps00ktyqy9.jpg


And a proprietary method of heat, chemicals and electricity.
20160307_115409-1_zpsq16v5yea.jpg


Titanium can be colored with heat or electricity. There are various charts for color when it comes to using current and an electrolyte bath. But heat is a feel and guess sort of affair, and depends on the composition of the Ti. And it is just forced oxidation. Same as with coloring steel with heat. The Ti will actually gain color as it starts to cool. You will see color, but back off just shy of the color you want to achieve and allow it to develop as the piece cools.

You shouldn't get the Ti hot enough to jack it up if done right. In fact, every time I've gone too far and the Ti starts to glow, the color has been the puke gray same as too much current will give you. Basically a quick version of the natural oxidation of Titanium when exposed to air.

Be careful with heat as thin chunks can ignite. And they're just no fun to deal with when that happens. Same thing when dealing with mill or lathe swarf. I've seen a thin ribbon go on a lathe before. Slung burning Ti everywhere. Not my lathe, not me doing it.... Enough for me to never tempt fate with it though.

Cheers!

-Eric
Overmountain Knife and Tool
Overmountain.us.com
 
Alpha Knife Supply said:
Here is an example of heat coloring with high temp colors:

7301-s.jpg


Chuck
Click to expand...
Chuck, you're officially a butt tard. (j/k) Timascus... That's cheating! [emoji3]

Your Instagram posts always floor me. Love it. Cheers.

These three were done at different Temps with intentional machine marks left in place on one. And one was heat colored, buffed, then heated again.
threehookers_zpsffltfwvr.jpg

Lots of really cool stuff you can do....

-Eric
Overmountain Knife and Tool
Overmountain.us.com
 
Last edited:
Overmountain said:
Chuck, you're officially a butt tard. (j/k) Timascus... That's cheating! [emoji3]

Your Instagram posts always floor me. Love it. Cheers.

These three were done at different Temps with intentional machine marks left in place on one. And one was heat colored, buffed, then heated again.
threehookers_zpsffltfwvr.jpg

Lots of really cool stuff you can do....

-Eric
Overmountain Knife and Tool
Overmountain.us.com
Click to expand...

Really nice work :)

Have you ever been able to replicate a pattern that resembles strider knives framelocks?
 
Teppojutsu said:
Really nice work :)

Have you ever been able to replicate a pattern that resembles strider knives framelocks?
Click to expand...
Yes, in experimenting but like to leave Mick's patterns to him... Similar process to the striped Brewtals shown on the other post.... They actually resemble his in the first couple of stages. I won't share exactly how, although I know that is something a lot of people want to copy. If you really want that done, it can be figured out with some research.

I know copying is supposed to be the highest form of flattery, but it feels like crap when you do something, and make it a fundamental design element of a knife, tool etc and then see it copied elsewhere.

Cheers.

-Eric
Overmountain Knife and Tool
Overmountain.us.com
 
This is a Timascus pendant which I did for my Mom for Mothers Day in memory of my Dad who passed away in October. This was my first go at doing any heat coloration and it was pretty simple. I used a propane torch, put on some rubber gloves and cleaned the part multiple times. The color change isn't extremely fast and I was able to watch it go through the various stages as I swept the flame back and forth. Once it got to where I wanted it the part got dunked into water to stop the process. The color definitely makes the gold inlay pop out!

Grab a couple inexpensive pieces and start experimenting.....if you screw up just polish it off and start again.
20160510_185108.jpg
 
Very nice .
I've taken a torch to TI but the few times I played with it I couldn't get as tight of lines as I wanted one the first try the second I used a big piece of steel as a heat sink but the colour kept bleeding through.

I'll just have to wait till I have more titanium to play with lol
I mainly did it because the clip on the tad dauntless mk 4 is kinda plain
So I decided to try hitting it to see what I got.

Just doing it the few times I did helps.me to respect others work more because of the difficulties involved :thumbup:
never would i copy somthing and say it's my design though, much respect to Overmountain .
The main reason I like striders stripes is they are so tight yet exhibit crisp color variations .
 
@Timt5352 is dead on. (And the pendant is awesome...) Great thing about Titanium. The layer you'll be putting on is relatively thin. Lots of room, with some elbow grease spent of course, to experiment.

I get drops from a local prototyping joint. May find the same around you. That will give you certified scrap to play with, sometimes in big enough sections to make something with. I just sourced 11"*3"*1.5" blocks of 6Al-4V for pennies. I feel some white sparks coming on.... And some color.

If you can't find it, don't have it, can't afford it and want a little scrap to play with hit me up.

-Eric
Overmountain Knife and Tool
Overmountain.us.com
 
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