titanium as springs

I'd be quite interested to know to. I have thought about it a bit. A possible solution to galling would be to have a hardened insert on the end similar to the ones on some framelocks.

An integral mokuti slipjoint would be pretty great :D
 
Perhaps my "far away" friend Don Robinson in Brownsville Texas will jump in here. I'll just bet he has had practical experience with this approach. Frank
 
Well after some digging with google it seems like titanium doesn't like slideing aginst itself or other metals. Maybe an insert or some type of coating would have to be used.
Probably why there aren't any out there.
 
I work with titanium on a daily basis. (surgical instruments) And I can tell you from experience titanium doesn't work well as a spring but can be done. Galling is an issue but that can be overcome with proper polishing and spring tension. If it's smooth enough, and the tension isn't excessive, it won't gall.
 
For what is worth
One of the things that I learned as a designer is that if you have one metal sliding on another is that one of the metals has to be several hardness differences between them and ususally would use two different types of metals. A slide would be H-13 @46-48 R/c, the guides would be S-7 @54-56 R/c. Another rule of thumb is that when there is one metal rubbing on another is that any angle less than 3 degrees is a locking angle.
I have not made any slippys but with liner locks titanium is frequently used as a lock and the angle on the back of the blade is 7 to 9 degrees. Dan
 
I asked these questions because a lot of linerlocks use titanium for the spring/lock mechanisiom and wondered if any one had tried it for slipjoints.
I guess the thing to do would be get a piece of titanium and try it myself. 5"X10" should make a few springs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top