I can't help but recall Steve Jobs introducing the PowerBook G4 Titanium:
> "Titanium! It's made out of titanium! Like the spy planes! This is an incredible material, it's stronger than steel yet lighter than aluminium."
The story of titanium
11–20 of 188 posts
Re: The story of titanium
#12Love titanium, something so cool about it. It’s like steel with no downsides. I’ve got 5 ti bikes and a few ti watches, one of my favorite pieces though is my snow peak double wall titanium mug.
Re: The story of titanium
#13As a kid in my father's workshop we had several 4mm thick titanium plates, scavenged from some industrial stuff in USSR research facility nearby. I had a lot of fun getting my visiting friends tey to dent it with hammers. No matter how hard you struck it just didn't care. Only the oxidation patina would show some trace of impact. It was absolute magic to me. And so incredibly light!
Those must have been soft hammers. Titanium isn't magic. It's neither as hard, nor as strong, as steel. It's a lot lighter, which makes it a wonder material in certain applications that can take advantage of it's excellent strength-to-weight ratio. But if max hardness, or strength at a given size, is what you are after, without a weight constraint, steel wins.
Re: The story of titanium
#14Love titanium, something so cool about it. It’s like steel with no downsides. I’ve got 5 ti bikes and a few ti watches, one of my favorite pieces though is my snow peak double wall titanium mug.
What makes the mug particularly good? Always interested in something to improve coffee and recently broke my favourite one.
Re: The story of titanium
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the USSR collapsed, a lot of defense companies pivoted to civilian production. A factory in my town was producing titanium shovel heads. They were awesome, unbelievably light, but very durable. They also made nice sparks when dragged across concrete pavement.
Decades ago, Sears sold magnesium stepladders. I've used one, and it's freakishly light, a 6-foot step ladder that you can walk around with balanced on one finger. I've always wondered what a titanium one would be like.
A lot heavier actually.
In an application like a stepladder, you have to work with certain minimum dimensions for the stepladder to be practical (eg rungs and sides have to fit in the hands nicely). You also have to have certain minimum thicknesses on the parts to have sufficient resistance to local deformation (eg dropping a hammer on the rungs). That forces the parts to be significantly larger and stronger than they otherwise would be. Which makes very lightweight metals like magnesium and aluminum the better choice, as you can make thick parts at the required dimensions at very little weight.
Climbing gear is a great example of this. Even though there's a segment of that market for which money is no object, the only use for titanium in climbing gear is certain specialized applications where corrosion resistance is important. Eg fixed gear mounted on sea-side cliffs. Because climbing gear has to have certain minimum dimensions to avoid damaging ropes, the very low density of aluminum wins over titanium's higher density/higher strength.
If you made a carabiner out of titanium it'd be stronger than necessary, and a lot heavier.
Re: The story of titanium
#16As a kid in my father's workshop we had several 4mm thick titanium plates, scavenged from some industrial stuff in USSR research facility nearby. I had a lot of fun getting my visiting friends tey to dent it with hammers. No matter how hard you struck it just didn't care. Only the oxidation patina would show some trace of impact. It was absolute magic to me. And so incredibly light!
Those must have been soft hammers. Titanium isn't magic. It's neither as hard, nor as strong, as steel. It's a lot lighter, which makes it a wonder material in certain applications that can take advantage of it's excellent strength-to-weight ratio. But if max hardness, or strength at a given size, is what you are after, without a weight constraint, steel wins.
I mean, I'm no materials scientist but one google tells me that Titanium is AS strong as steel but much less dense. I just browsed through the top 10 Google results and everyone states that titanium is roughly equal to steel in strength but with various other benefits. So your comment is definitely off-base somewhere, you make it seem like steel is much stronger, which clearly isn't the case.
Re: The story of titanium
#17Love titanium, something so cool about it. It’s like steel with no downsides. I’ve got 5 ti bikes and a few ti watches, one of my favorite pieces though is my snow peak double wall titanium mug.
What makes the mug particularly good? Always interested in something to improve coffee and recently broke my favourite one.
I've got a Ti double-walled mug from Snow Peak that I use a lot around the house. The big strengths are light weight, near indestructability, and a cool Ti functional aesthetic. It's double-walled and holds heat well, but I prefer the "mouth feel" of ceramic or glass when drinking coffee, so I don't use it much for coffee.
Re: The story of titanium
#18Love titanium, something so cool about it. It’s like steel with no downsides. I’ve got 5 ti bikes and a few ti watches, one of my favorite pieces though is my snow peak double wall titanium mug.
What makes the mug particularly good? Always interested in something to improve coffee and recently broke my favourite one.
I've got one myself. For only a bit more weight (~70g) than single-walled aluminum mug (~60g), Snow Peak can put two walls, making the mug insulated.
Though it's heavier than an insulated plastic mug, and _way_ more expensive.
Re: The story of titanium
#19Resting next to me is a titanium ring, it is extremely light, resistant to ambient temp change, and is usually cool to the touch. It cost $15 or so. It wears in a really beautiful way, aging like it's enjoying itself.
On my finger is a tungsten carbide ring, it's extremely dense (that of gold, slightly heavier than uranium), and has a lot of interesting properties. It's warmed quickly by my fingers, and rings the most beautiful tone when I strike it with some bar stock of AI.
Wolfram has been a very nice metal in my life, I wish it was more common, and would love to try to add some knurling to it.
Re: The story of titanium
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those must have been soft hammers. Titanium isn't magic. It's neither as hard, nor as strong, as steel. It's a lot lighter, which makes it a wonder material in certain applications that can take advantage of it's excellent strength-to-weight ratio. But if max hardness, or strength at a given size, is what you are after, without a weight constraint, steel wins.
I mean, I'm no materials scientist but one google tells me that Titanium is AS strong as steel but much less dense. I just browsed through the top 10 Google results and everyone states that titanium is roughly equal to steel in strength but with various other benefits. So your comment is definitely off-base somewhere, you make it seem like steel is much stronger, which clearly isn't the case.
Steel's strength varies by orders of magnitude depending on the alloy and heat treatment. It's an incredibly flexible family of materials. Some members of that family are far stronger than anything in the titanium family, e.g. 4340 steel has a nominal yield strength of >1800 MPa, compared to <1300 MPa for Ti 10-2-3.