Heat Colouring Titanium?

C

Cubane

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,

Does anyone have any experience heat colouring Titanium? I was looking at anodizing my liners for the build off knife but I don't have the equipment to do that and the only local place wanted to charge me $90 to do the 2 liners. I know you can heat colour it as well although I am sure it is now where near as accurate as anodizing. I was aiming for a gold/yellow colour. If I put it in my forge is the Ti going to stuff it up? I have heard you need a separate forge for making mokume as the copper with stuff up the forge for welding.

Thoughts?

Alistair
 
You can hea color it with a propane torch.Practice on some scrap first.You can get some neet colors.
Just start playing the flame up and down the Ti and watch the colors run.Gold and yellow don't take much heat.The hotter it gits it goes to blue and purple.
Stan
 
Not too late at all. I am considering what to do for the build off and that might be a the ticket. I have a couple of weeks yet so I think it could be done. We are 240V here in Oz I wonder if that changes anything.

Alistair
 
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Just put it in your toaster oven at about 400 deg and you will get a nice uniform gold/bronze color. You may have to try it on some scraps to get the color you want depending on the whether your oven runs hot or not. You also need to wash the liners with soap and water and then handle them with gloves, your fingerprints will act as a resist and show up.
 
Cheers, After I thought about it some more I should have just asked one of the few local makers here if they had an anodizer. Turns out one of them does so anodized liners for the build off here we come. Thanks for the help everyone.
 
I make more or less all my anodization with the propan torch (since my generator was down...)

Don't forget to perfectly degreased the ti with acetone or something like that or you will see finger print in the anodization (that could be a special effect :)).

I generally take the piece of ti on a steel strip or something like that (never or rarely with wrench because of the heat absorption of the material.)

I use a very thin torch but it's possible to make it with a larger one.

You can have various effect

framegus01.jpg


Perfectly clean color. That is the most difficult to do, the aim is to have the same time of heat everywhere on the liner. . That is really difficult with a torch. That color is one of the first you could obtain in the color range of ti.

tartitox6.jpg

Quite the same color everywhere, but some variation.
It's the easiest to have, don't worry to stay exactly the same time everywhere. The small variation of temperature will give some special effect.
frameleroy08.jpg


The blue would be more or less the equivalent or 60v, the green and pink would be around the 130v. (if you use electricity)

DSC07046.jpg

The last level of heat anodization. The titanium is almost burned. The ti oxyde is ultra deep and resistant. The way to obtain that is to keep the ti red hot during some time. Very hot. And to keep it cooling slowly. (if you quench it in water or something else you have the risk to see it move....)

Another way to make simple anodization with more or less nothing. Is 9v battery in serie (to obtain the voltage you need).
2 piece of electric cable.
A small acid bath (sulfuric with water). A piece of something else than the liner to make the electron move. One cable on the liner, one on the other piece in the bath. And that is perfectly clean. (i never know if it's the + or the - that need to be on the liner. But if the ti doesn't change of color, that is the other choice :D)
 
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