titanium

Is titanium a good material for making weapons?

What about swords? Is carbon steel or titanium better and why? Is titanium more expensive than many other metals?

it depends right?

i dont know whats up with the search feature

<putting on my engineering hat>

Titanium is hard to work and is an expensive alloy.

I don't know how it would fare being used as a blade however from what I've seen of it being used in some of my industrial applications I would say that you are best to use a high carbon steel and leave titanium for the experts!

Welds can be difficult to make and are very prone to cracking so need full crack & penetration analysis prior to release, plus I dont know if manufacturers are making titanium filler rods or welding wire.

<removes engineering hat>

I would ask that with so many well made weapons available in steel, why anyone would want to mess with titanium...?

Being too lazy on top of not knowing enough about titanium to really put my finger on why it isn't used for swords, although i have heard it discussed just couldn't remember the details, i did look up something on swordforum.com that addresses this quite well.

http://swordforum.com/metallurgy/titanium.html

Hope that answers any questions you had.

I can't speak of sword construction, but this might help.

The US Navy experimented with titanium dive knives to be issued to combat swimmers and divers and other such folk.

While they were corrosion proof and lightweight, they refused to hold an edge and were extremely diffucult to sharpen.

Given that their is a finite amount of titanium in the world, and it is very expensive, it probably isn't the best choice for swords.

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I think Reki makes an excellent point.

Its possible to create all sorts of weapons out of "super steels" and various other "super" alloys etc.

But would the gain be worth the cost and effort.

Maybe in a lab.

But you'd be just as dead of stab from a cheap steel knife as one crafted from a titianum alloy one.

thanks

yes and the steel one will cost you a fraction that the titanium one would! and would be finished far quicker too!

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Given that their is a finite amount of titanium in the world, and it is very expensive, it probably isn't the best choice for swords.

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Make that an "infinite" amount. Titanium dioxide is the coloring agent in white paint and entire beaches in australia are titanium oxide and not silicon oxide. There is just about as much titanium in the world as there is iron.

The cost comes from the fact that you can make iron (and thus steel) in a factory mode where you have stuff going in and coming out at the same time. Making titanium is like baking cookies where you can only make a batch at a time. very slow

the bottom line is that titanium is roughly the same strength as steel, but will not hold an edge nearly as well as carbon steel no matter how you heat treat it. A titanium sword would be for show only. On the other hand I am in the process of making a set of titanium sai. I'll send pictures when I get to them =)

p.s. there was a quote from someone about welding, but it is very commonplace with titanium. Ti is a major aerospace component and the welding of it has been research into the ground for the past 50 years. Its common now, any machine shop could do it well.