Titanium Damascus thread

BossDog

BossDog

KnifeDogs.com & USAknifemaker.com Owner
Staff member
please note: I moved a few of the following posts from the shop thread and merged them with this thread. Some may seem out of order. They are but I wanted all this in one threadand the software won’t let me straighten them out exactly.

This thread will be about forging Damascus titanium. Post any comments you like. If you have done this, speak up. Forging Ti isn’t well documented and I thought I would see how it works and share my experiments.



Working on making some Titanium Mokume.
Never done it so made up some 2x2" square stacks.
Alternating between 3 kinds of Ti: 6al, CP (pure) and 6242.
Prepped like steel damascus.
Stacked and Tig welded around the entire edge.
The Tig welding was way faster and easier than anticipated.

I'll heat these to dull/bright red and squeeze in the press.
Once it's welded, I hit one test black with the hammer and the other with a ladder die.
I'll post pics when I get that done - win or fail.


IMG_0744.jpg

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TIG welded edge. No filler added. Ti puddles nicely and can be moved around easily with a TIG torch. I would guess that a fine tip oxy/acetylene torch would work also.
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BossDog said:
Working on making some Titanium Mokume.
Never done it so made up some 2x2" square stacks.
Alternating between 3 kinds of Ti: 6al, CP (pure) and 6242.
Prepped like steel damascus.
Stacked and Tig welded around the entire edge.
The Tig welding was way faster and easier than anticipated.

I'll heat these to dull/bright red and squeeze in the press.
Once it's welded, I hit one test black with the hammer and the other with a ladder die.
I'll post pics when I get that done - win or fail.


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Click to expand...

I have been wanting to try this. Please keep us updated how it goes.
 
I did a test on the 2"x2" billets of Titanium shown above a few posts back.
The first billet did not weld at all. I was in the 1600 to 1700 range guessing. It fell apart when I cut it.

The second test billet below mostly welded. I ran this one a little hotter and longer. The top layer has half a delam but the rest is solid. I whacked it several times on the edge to try and get it to split but it's solid.

I'll make up some more little test billets and take it to 1800 to 1900 range and let it soak a bit longer and give it a squeeze in the press. The thicker gold layers are Ti 6242 and did not move in the press. The other layers are 6al and CP. Those did move (a little) in the press.


IMG_0780.jpg
 
prepped some more Ti test billets and a can to heat and squeeze tomorrow.
The little squares 2x2x.300" the can is something like 1.25x1.25x3 and has a stack of Ti and Ti powder.
We'll see how this works.
The reason they are small is this stuff isn't cheap. When I am confident I have the process down, I can scale up a bit.

IMG_0781.jpg
 
These first few pics are not in chronological order.

I used .040" thick 6al and CP (grade 2) Titanium.
The stacks were around 8 to 10 2x2" squares so between 1/4" and 330" thick.

The edges were Tig welded with no filler. The TIG melts and seals the ti stack completely. TIGing the edges was very quick and easy. Ti flows likes well behaved molten solder under the TIG torch.


The can had several pieces of .040" strips and then was filled with Ti powder and tig welded shut. More on that one later.
IMG_0781 (1).jpg

This piece is actually three kinds of Ti. 6al, 6242 and CP. There is a slight delam on the top layer here as I was a touch too cold.

IMG_0780.jpg

Here is a piece I squeezed 3 times in the press. The scale is not that deep and it moves fairly easy around 1800 to 1900.
Since these pieces were fairly small I couldn't get a decent hand hammer hold but did manage to get a few swings in before it bounced away from my tongs. It will hand hammer easy when hot.
IMG_0783.jpg
 
A couple small billets in the forge. Ti does not move heat along it's self very fast. These needed a bit more soak than say a carbon billet this thin.

IMG_0782.jpg

Here is the can. It's hot. When I squeezed it in the squaring dies the second time one of the ends popped open a bit and a bead of molten Ti squirted out. It brushed my face when it shot by. Stand to the side.
I had let it soak quite a bit since it was a mix of powder and strips. When I squared it up on the vertical, some more molten ti oozed out the crack on the seam. I let it cool a bit before giving it one more squeeze in the squaring dies. I would say it was at 2000F and was in the heat for a good 20 minutes. It will take a few more runs to dial that part in.
IMG_0784.jpg
 
The little bubble looking bump is where the molten ti oozed out after a squeeze.
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nuther look.
IMG_0787.jpg

Cooled down. Now to mill off the mild steel can and see what we ended up with. I expect a failure but who knows, we might get lucky.
IMG_0792.jpgIMG_0791.jpg
 
Here is what I ended up with. A few pieces are cut to see inside. Cutting .300" thick Ti is unfun.
IMG_0793.jpg


I squeezed one billet in a ladder die. I used one ladder die on top and flat die on the bottom.
I hit it once, rotated 90 degrees and hit it again.
I did see where some of top layer lifted at the edge.
Now I have to figure out the easiest way to skin off the bumps.
IMG_0790.jpgIMG_0789.jpg


Here is a pic of 4 edges on different billets. They all seemed to stick well. I hit a couple on the edge to see if they would pop apart and they held. Forging these further to get any kind of pattern will tell me more. My impression right now is they can be forged further with dies in a Press or hammered.

I put the CP layers on the outside when I built these stacks to understand what the colors would be when heat colored. The CP heat colors quite a bit faster than the 6AL. The 6242 heat colors pretty close to the rate of 6al so I need to find and try some different Ti alloys.

Look at top piece on the right hand end. It was not heat colored evenly on purpose.

I heat colored it so the CP went light blue and the 6AL finally got to purple/blue from the gold color. I will test a billet of CP and 6242 to see if they will heat color at a closer rate. I would like to get past the gold color with out having the other alloy go light (washed out) blue which is what happens when you get at the top end of this process before going crappy brown.

Now I need to mill the can and have a look.
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chrisstaniar said:
Your aren't kidding. I looked into it and small pieces 2"x2" are $89, ouch
Click to expand...

Not that much. I'm *guessing* each 2x2 square maybe 1/4" thick cost $30.
I better do the math though.

Before anyone asks. I won’t be making this to sell. I am just playing in the shop because I can.
 
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milling the can off is nasty business. The corners folded in a bit in the squaring dies and I need to get every bit of mild out.
IMG_0799.jpg

The flat surface is powder ti, no solid. You can see where a piece flaked out and see a few of the pieces stacked inside. They look and feel fused together but still, it flaked away which is not encouraging.
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The piece I am holding is a mix of mild and Ti where the can folded in a bit on the corner.
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After milling all the sides a couple times and trashing my 3/4" end mill we seem to have a solid enough kinda rectangle shape billet.
The plan is to see if this will forge traditionally going forward.
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I think I have the mild removed. I'll drop it in some etch (again) to see if mild is left on the surface.
Curious pit marks, like bubbles showed up where the powder Ti was. They go deep. I will remove as much as I can then I am going to pop this in the forge and see how it forges. First I'll try hand hammering and then the power hammer.
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Crappiest ladder pattern ever BUT it's titanium and is a test.

I managed to sand down the high spots from the ladder die. Removing Titanium in bulk is not trivial. It's smelly, nasty and slow.
I used a 40 grit angle grinder disc that barely got most of it removed and then moved to a contact wheel with a fairly new ceramic 36 grit holding it by hand. I will absolutely need a better process.
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Here is it after a little heat coloring. Most of the damascus ti I see tends to be random raindrop. I'll have to make a set of dies for the press. I am not heading to the welding supply store to see what they have for my angle grinder that will cut titanium better.

What this does show is the welds were good all the way in the stack. The ladder dies are pretty aggressive and it looks like a waffle when it comes out of the press. Again. I used only the top die as a ladder die and flat die on the bottom. I expect to have a pretty side and a plain side simply to reduce the amount of grinding on this stuff.

The gold color material is 6al and seems to overwhelm the CP (purple). I think I will look at using .030" 6AL and .040" CP to change the ratio a bit.
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This one is at least a 7 of 10 on the cool stuff scale.

This is the can shown earlier in the thread.
You can see the lines by color here. I squeezed this vertical to the lines to see if it would split. It didn't.
This was around 1950F.
Drawing dies easily handled this. Someone made a comment somewhere that Ti forges like a dream. They are more right than wrong.

Be fearless. Forge Titanium.
IMG_0812.jpg


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This is flattened to around 1/2" - 3/4" so basically 1/2. You can easily see the edges of the small pieces that were in the can. I was pretty sure it would split but it didn't.
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Here is some of the scale cleaned off. This is 10 minutes on the angle grinder with a 40 grit. It almost polished it.
I need a much better process to reduce the stock size and clean scale up and I don't have room for a blanchard grinder.

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Video Hand forging titanium billet. One pass just to show it will move easy enough under a hand hammer.
Click the link

IMG_0819.mp4

Hand forging titanium damascus
knifedogs.com
 
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I'm assuming you've already thought of this...

Isn't Timascus patented by Tom Ferry?

Not sure about Mokume. I know Chad Nichols makes Ti Mokume without stepping on the patent.

I guess you're doing something similar?
 
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