Make a Titanium Ring

Titanium is an awesome metal. If you have the patience it makes an equally awesome ring. It's a very hard material. My guess is that it takes twice as long to make compared to a nickel ring.  

Step 1: Cut a piece off.

I first tried using a scroll saw and a diamond wheel to cut the metal. You'd think I was trying to cut it with a butter knife. I ended up drilling several holes and breaking it free in a vice.

Comments

[Terranan]

I absolutly love your video. The short edits, the sudden loud power tools and hammers... I lol'd. Don't know if thats the effect you wanted, but I still enjoyed it. :P

[J.R.YATES]

Here is a link about titanium rings and jewelry:
http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/abouttitanium.html

And here is a link about BLACK titanium.
http://www.titanium-jewelry.com/about-black-titanium.html

[J.R.YATES]

I agree with ayoung5 who said: Titanium is hard to keep looking polished, it dulls very quick (less than a week). A good polish I found for titanium is called The Original Purple Metal Polish. We use it at my work and I give the wedding ring a once over every week or so, keeps it looking new.

At our jewelry store we regulary polish our customers titanium wedding bands.
Here is how we do it. We use the 3 stage platinum polishing process to polish out gray titanium.

1) Start with 800 grit rouge compound getting deep scratches out.
2) Switch to 1500 grit
3) Final step use 8000 grit for an ultra reflective high polish

The result is very nice!

[KemikalzAreFun]

Wow! 0.0 I imagine this one had to take a while considering the toughness of the metal you were working with.. This is defiantly not a 2 hr project (unlike nickel rings).

[andreyeurope]

Where can I find a little piece of titanium ?
I heard that Anodizing titanium it's amazing.

[Mrballeng]

I've only ever seen it in 12"x12" sheets at the smallest. I got mine from onlinemetals.com

[jnunz]

your local airport has an abundance of Ti. ask around @ repair stations. they have a lot of scrap. trust me i know

[andreyeurope]

Ok. Thanks.

[jnunz]

seariously, i do hope you beat the blonde that attached pvc pipe to her heels and called it a snow plow.......

[Mr.Sanchez]

Titanium Ring Vs. Iron Flail that is an Epic match.Good Luck my good Sir.!!

[donedirtcheap]

Good work and good luck. I can only imagine what you could do with a 3D printer.
Cheers!

[Marshal Banana]

I just use ebay for cheap Titanium plate. For jewelry purposes you really don't need to be concerned about alloy.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Metals-Alloys-/29402/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=titanium+plate

[CRAZYBOBMAN]

Nice work, I can only work with softer metals, titanium would drive me crazy!

[ayoung5]

Titanium is hard to keep looking polished, it dulls very quick (less than a week). A good polish I found for titanium is called The Original Purple Metal Polish. We use it at my work and I give the wedding ring a once over every week or so, keeps it looking new.

[aforbes98]

Your ring must not be titanium. Mine is almost 2 years old and I've never polished it and it still looks as good as the day I bought it. The silver band that holds the diamonds is scratched as hell.

[lilshawn]

I used to have a titanium ring, (until I lost it) it was naturally a tiny bit matte finished to begin with. it was pretty tough to even scuff...I'm always banging it against concrete walls and whatnot. I loved it because it was tough and light as a feather (I never wore rings till I got married) I only polished it once in the 5 years I had it...even then i don't think the polish made any real difference (too hard). My replacement ring is Tungsten Carbide... While not as tough as straight carbon steel, it's NEVER needed a polish, and still looks like the day I got it.

[bruce5000]

i really like the ,, titanium ring ... i dont have the tools need to do these im a small time hobbist maybe a video of how to with basic tool,s if it possible thank,s

[shizumadrive]

I was wondering how many drill bits and other tools died in the making of the ring. I'd assume it will be quite a few.

[Bowtie41]

Low rpm,and a little heavier than normal feeds and even carbon steel tools will hold up for awhile on titanium.Another tip is to freeze it before turning or drilling.We used to soak 12' bars in liquid nitrogen before running in screw machines,and when the finish on the parts started to go,would sharpen the tooling,and resoak the bars.Of course this was high production.I've made several titanium parts with ordinary hand tools.

[shizumadrive]

Very interesting and hopefully useful information. I just don't know when Ill get my hands on some titanium. The mind is willing but the wallet is weak.

[askjerry]

Did you know that by putting Titanium into a conducting liquid and running a DC current through it you can anodize it to different colors?

Read this: http://mrtitanium.com/interference.html

Pretty neat stuff!

[askjerry]

And... if you want to watch a video to really show it to you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N07NpyXisRg

This really shows you how fast it is. I gotta get some Titanium... fun stuff.

[askjerry]

Not trying to be a thread hijack... but here is one showing the different voltages... I set the link to jump to the proper timeline in the video too. 2:46 Into it.

http://youtu.be/RE3Ia6nuaRs?t=2m46s

[Mrballeng]

Thanks for all the good info.

[Bobblehead Einstein]

Definately an Indestructible ring,voted for you :)

[Mrballeng]

Cool thanks!

[stayputnik]

Nice 'ible! Mind if I ask where you got your sheet of titanium?

[Mrballeng]

I got it from a website called "online metals" for about $200.00.

[spiritwalker6153]

Where does one buy titanium? And how expensive is it?

[Mrballeng]

I got it from a website called "online metals" for about $200.00.

[Martijn_huis]

Dude! Nice!
Where did you order the Titanium? And how much did it kost?

[Mrballeng]

I got it from a website called "online metals" for about $200.00.

[FrancisKisner]

This is an interesting instruction but I have a caution to share with you all. I spent over 30 years in the jewelry business. From time to time, someone would come to me with a ring stuck on their finger. It might have been that they shut the finger in a door and it started to swell up. It might have been an insect sting that did it. Some had just left the ring on until the finger grew over it. I had a tool that could cut the ring without harming the hand. It had a hand powered cutting blade like a very slow circular saw. Took a long time but it would cut through the gold or silver cleanly. After the cut was made, I could spread the ring and take it off.
What if there was not a jeweler close by with the tool? Then people would go to the emergency room where they had the same tool but with an electric motor to power the blade. Here is where the caution comes in: If anyone used that cutter on a titanium ring, the blade would have been completely dull in less than 10 seconds! Titanium resists that kind of cutting and it doesn't transmit heat easily. The friction of the blade on the metal generates a lot of heat. All the heat stays in the blade and kills the hardness in seconds.
Not meaning to rain on the parade but titanium rings are unsafe.
Now a suggestion: Make the ring out of a metal that can be cut and inlay it with titanium. The metal is beautiful and colorful when treated correctly. You could have a one-of-a-kind ring that is still safe to wear as long as there is a place that a blade can cut the base material. Silver is a good and not too expensive choice. Softening the silver would allow for the inlay process.
Peace.

[festeezio]

If you are going to make or buy a titanium ring, make sure that you use "plain" or nearly pure titanium such as the grade 2 (aka CP-2 (commercially pure 2)) titanium that Mr. Balleng was using. Most ring cutters will cut through pure titanium readily. Grade 5 titanium (also known as aerospace titanium or Ti6Al4V) is extremely difficult to cut off of someone's finger safely. As FrancisKisner noted, most ring cutters (even the ones in the ER) won't do it. Tungsten Carbide rings (sometimes misrepresented as pure tungsten) are even worse. The only thing that reliably cuts tungsten carbide is diamond. Good luck using a high-speed diamond wheel on an already mangled finger.


I bet that CP2 ring Mr. Balleng made would anodize to all kinds of beautiful colors.

[shizumadrive]

It's a concern but the number of people who have had to get their rings cut off is such a small percentage.

[MikB]

I'm betting the percentage that had their finger cut off instead -- was higher? :)

[ac-dc]

You make a good point, that it's generally unwise to wear a ring made of a hard, or hardened, metal for the reasons stated. However today's ERs tend to have carbide or diamond wheel cutoff blades that will eventually get through Ti, and generally speaking when cutting metal on metal you're supposed to use a cutting fluid or oil to clear away chips as well as decrease blade surface temperature. Even so, why make it harder to remove than it needs to be? A ring doesn't need to be far more durable than the hand wearing it.

However, if it's soft metal you may not even need the trip to a pro, can just snip it off with common hand tools.

[jlindeh]

Fake!! is not titanium ! for work with titanium you need special tools, drilling is not so easy and other tools

[festeezio]

Nope. Even aerospace titanium (Ti6Al4V) can be cut with high speed steel tools, although they won't last long :-) . Carbide tipped tools (even the cheap ones from Harbor Frt) make quick work of titanium on a table-top lathe (I'm using a Sherline model). I'd go with carbide over steel though; the bits will last much longer and the cutting will be a much more pleasant experience.
Cheers.

[biolethal]

virtually all commercially available titanium is an alloy that doesent catch on fire when you drill it.