[TheForge] Heat treat for Titanium

[David E. Smucker]

Titanium alloys are solution heat treated just as aerospace aluminum alloys 
are solution heat treated.  Since almost all Titanium you will come across 
was intended for aerospace or medical applications most titanium alloys can 
be and are solution heat treated. (Some of the medical ones may not be.)

I have never myself heat treated titanium alloys so what follows is 
"handbook" information.  I have been around tons of aluminum aerospace heat 
treating.

First I assume that you have no clue to what alloy content your titanium 
happens to have -- so what follow is rather general.  There are a whole 
range of titanium alloys from alpha, to alpha-beta, to beta alloys.  These 
types deal with the alloy contend and the type of structures these alloys 
have at various temperatures.

Those titanium alloys that are solution heat treatable are generally heated 
to 1700 to 1800 F and then water quenched.  They are then followed by a 
aging at temperature in the range of 1000 F for 4 to 8 hours.  What happen 
in solution heat treating is the alloying elements go into solution at the 
heat treating temperature and are then kept in solution by quenching.  The 
aging at the elevated temperature completes the cycle giving the high 
strength and hardness you might be looking for.

This said, if solution heat treating of titanium is anything like the 
solution heat treating of aluminum then very bad things happen if you over 
heat  (for aluminum airplanes fall out of the sky).  What happens is that 
you get local melting of the alloy and this results in soft or weak spots in 
the product.

But since you are making a sticker, and it is unlikely that if they "fail" 
they will kill someone, give it a try.

Heat your item to 1700 F, this is what I would call an orange heat.  Then 
quench, then reheat to a dull red in very low light.  Let air cool.

Dave Smucker
(Hey, I been gone a long time.)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Freeman" <freemab222 at yahoo.com>
To: "Bob Ehrenberger" <eforge at centurytel.net>; "Sponsored by ABANA" 
<theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 12:48 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Heat treat for Titanium


> Well...I'm no expert on titanium, but I wouldn't think
> that heat treating would have any bearing on the
> matter.  Steel is kinda unique, in that it is an
> iron-carbon alloy.  It is because of the properties of
> the various iron-carbon species that hardening and
> tempering work the way they do.
>
> For example, you anneal steel by heating it to red
> (above critical) an cooling REAL slowly, and you
> harden it by heating it likewise and quenching it in
> water.  In contrast, most metals are annealed by
> bringing them up to a red heat (or at least till soft
> - as red heat melts aluminum, for example) and
> quenching in water.
>
> So, I don't know what the procedure would be for
> titanium, if indeed there is any, to harden it.  Seems
> to me it's just "nacherly" hard.
>
> You might try work-hardening it.  That works on most
> metals.
>
> Bruce
> OR/NJ
>
>
> --- Bob Ehrenberger <eforge at centurytel.net> wrote:
>
>> A while back Pat McCarty brought a flint striker
>> made form titanium to a BAM
>> meeting.  It was real impressive  and put out a
>> shower of white sparks.
>> Well I got a piece of titanium and made a striker
>> this last week. Not
>> knowing how to heat treat it I just normalized it.
>> Something isn't right,
>> I get an occational white spark but only about one
>> out of every 6-10 hits.
>>
>> I called Pat and he couldn't remember what he did to
>> get the nice sparks.
>>
>> Does anyone have any idea on how to heat treat it to
>> get good sparks.  I
>> thought I'd ask before I experimented and runed it.
>>
>> Robert Ehrenberger
>> Shelbyville, Mo.
>> eforge at centurytel.net
>>
>>
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