Like my life isn’t complicated enough, I now need to do some Titanium welding. Not me personally, however. I do have some aircraft grade titanium bars coming to me soon from Irvine, California where apparently the stuff grows on shrubs.
Okay, enough small talk. Can my buddy Kenn in Northern California use a TIG welder to weld the bars of titanium? Aside from the welding rods, does he need to get his grubby mits on anything else special because it’d titanium, and not some garden variety of steel? ( Sorry Kenn, but the last time I saw you face to face, your hands were covered with grub ).
I’d rather weld the joint I have to make, than use a joining block and just screw the two bars together. The shearing force on the screws I’d be using would be daunting. I’m going to be hanging 40-80 lbs off the end of the one titanium bar, and so I figured welding is the way to go here.
Anyone just happen to have like 3 decades of experience in this field ( I'm thinking the Anthracite of the titanium world here- Anth, your postings on that coal thread were killer :D ). Help !
Titanially yours,
Cartooniverse
JOINT DESIGN AND PREPARATION
Weld joint designs for titanium are similar to those for other metals (Table 22). The joint design selected for titanium however, must permit proper inert gas shielding of both root and face during welding as well as post-weld…see rest at link below
Bicycle-frame-building husband sez: “Yes you can. It’s a pain in the ass and you have to back-purge it with argon. It’s like welding aluminum; it welds like butter.”
What is the end use of the material? Are you planning a shear load at the furthest point e.g. hanging stuff or a potrack?
Do you have access to a lathe? A cool alternative could be dovetails and pins. I used to have a couple metal planes where the body is dovetailed to the sole and they were virtually indestructable.
One of my clients owns a metal fabrication shop and he does all kinds of off the wall and innovative stuff for us. Give me more info on what you want and the material you have to work with (dimensions!!) and I’d be happy to run it by him and my other metalworker buddies.
The reason I suggested a mechanical fastening method has to do with the PITA factor of welding Ti, plus it can add a higher level of asthetic to even a mundane application. This is a good thing! making something that people use on an everyday basis and adding something that says “Hey look! isn’t this an elegant solution?”, makes me happy (especially if it’s subtle and it doesn’t scream out)
Well, you won’t believe this but this gal did weld titanium in Engineering School with a TIG as part of an optional “applied engineering shop class” (which, BTW, was one of the best classes I ever took).
And I had not one but 2 graduate Engineering courses specifically on welding, including titanium.
And you know what’s sad? I can’t remember a damn thing, including where my very expensive course books are. How sad to lose all that memory.
It is absolutely critical to inert-gas purge both sides, with a pretty high flow rate. Molten titanium has a very high affinity for oxygen, and you will get a spectacular fire if you don’t keep them away from each other. When we have to weld Ti when fabricating jet engine parts, we’ll do it in a vacuum chamber with automated equipment just be sure we don’t scrap an expensive part.
How to describe this? It's not a household use. And, I have an incredible machinist at my disposal. They can mill the Titanium into anything I need. I was seriously considering ( and will probably to go with ) a joining block made of 1"x1"x3" high stainless steel. You see...my fear in using a joining block is that I will be hanging between $ 60,000 and $ 275,000 worth of motion picture camera gear off of it. The shearing force on those three or four machine screws will be daunting. Now, I can easily purchase a box of hardened machine screws, and simply change them once a month- THAT'S easy. I love the idea of welding, but insuring that the weld is perfectly done is tough. ( I know, I know, the technology exists. I am not interested in a $ 15,000 solution here, this is my out of pocket solution to a spinal problem).
It will be a bar approximately 1 foot long, joined at a right angle with another bar approximately 18" long. At the end of the 18" bar hangs a Steadicam arm, and at the end of the Steadicam arm hangs La Camera.( Not for nothing, but the Steadicam arm alone is $ 14,000-and is mine. I'd hate to trash it too in a total failure, rental camera gear aside).
I am, at this point, tempted to go with the lower-tech solution and have my machinist make that stainless steel joining block. I think that with some proper milling and whatnot, it will hold just fine. Sexy is only an issue inasmuch as I don't want this thing to look like a Tinker Toy. Since I'm using Polypropelene, Carbon Fiber Composite, Aluminum and Titanium ( Not to mention Velcro :D :D ), I don't think it will look cheesy. My bigger concern is safety, and efficacy.
Thank you all for the input on this, however. Anthracite, what can I say? I’m STILL in awe of ya, even if you did sell that textbook to purchase Haagen-Dazs ice cream in the early 1990’s
Cartooniverse
Oh, let’s just jump ahead almost two years shall we? Now I have that piece of Titanium in the garage. I got it bent using a VERY low-tech and amusing method. I took it to the local Meineke Muffler Shop, and in exchange for some pizza, the guy there placed it into the pipe bending machine, and we both watched through squinted eyes as he used the incredible force of that slow-moving device to bend the bar…right to where I needed it.
The invention didn’t work out. I’m now sorely tempted to make it into a sculpture and offer it to the Apple Store where I bought my Titanium PowerBook. First though, I’ll have to find out exactly how much titanium is used in each TiBook, then weigh out the bar and title it accordingly.
Damn. I didn’t realise this thread was so old. I thought that it was connected to your Tibook thread, and you were creating some amazing sculpted matching desk thing to display your new toy upon.
Now hold on there, Tell me just how you needed to use the thingamajig. I make stuff for Joe Dunton here in Wilmington NC all the time and Panavision.
You got an idea, don’t let it “not work”, we can make anything work! period!
If you want to email me your specs and (with an assurance of total secrecy and references upon request) I’ll make it work.
Do you have a sketch or plan of your idea? It may not yet be beyond hope. I did some camera boom work years ago and made a few items not unlike what you’re describing… Plus I have some good solids modeling software that will do stress analysis if I tweak it.
Wow ! >>sniffle<< Youse guys is da best. Okay then, in order…
istara, I am going to make a sculpture out of it, indeedy. I plan on using alabaster, the titanium curved bar, and perhaps rods of walnut, I’m not sure yet. I’ve debated offering the work to the Apple Store where I got the TiBook, but I might like it enough to keep it here.
Weeks, you’re an ace !!! Panavision, huh? ^5. However, the idea failed because Titanium is springy in its properties. It was an okay idea, but one I was copying. The titanium was the wrong materials, I’d have been wise to go with carbon/fibre composites. The flexing in the Titanium was wicked, and unacceptable in a Steadicam arm situation. Still, thanks for the offer. It’s a done deal now, I’m retired from Steadicam and shooting in general.
David Simmons, no in fact he had no idea who to send me to who was experienced welding Titanium. Fortunately for me, my ace pal taliesin was willing to take a shot at doing it for me. Sadly, that didn’t happen- I went with bending it instead. Welding a right angle and gusset would not have worked either, but it’d have given taliesin bragging rights for years if the welds took nicely.
Billy, thank you as well for the offer for design help. I just can’t see trying to work it out, I know it flexes and always willand besides…I’ve retired.
I have a friend who built his own argon chamber to weld titanium in. I can give you his number if you want. This guy is a real psycho, for an air supply, he ran a garden hose to the outside of his garage, and whenever he started feeling dizzy, he would suck on the hose. But the guy is a certified aerospace welder, who runs his own mobile tig service. They guy can pretty much weld anything. He also gets pissed and kicks his computer all the time, so I get free welding in exchange for fixing it.
PSSSST!Cartooniverse, haven’t ya ever heard of patent royalties? Maybe titanium won’t work for your idea, but something else might. Okay, so you don’t need it, but there might be someone else out there who could use it! There’s enough of us Dopers with brains out there, that we could come up with a workable design. I, for one, would be willing to sign away any rights I might have for helping you come up with a workable design. (Just so long as I get mention in the patent.) Heck, you could prolly get all us Dopers to agree to sign the rights to any royalties over to the CR so long as they agreed to use at least a percentage of 'em to buy a bionic hamster for the SDMB server.
Tuckerfan, thou doth misseth the pointeth. Letteth me elaboratum herewith:
I was attempting to make a copy of something that’s protected by Patent already. I’m something of a fiend on intellectual properties, I am free to have tried to make MYSELF one of these things, but know full well that I’m prevented by Patent law from making any for profit. Besides, this thing is a body harness that only exists to support a Steadicam system, and if there are 500 camera operators in a room, 2 MIGHT know how to operate a Steadicam. Might, I say.
Not only is there zero market for this idea-relatively speaking- but it’s already protected. Thanks for the offer, though. If I thought I had a hook on something worth pursuing, I’ve got the name and number of an awesome Patent Attorney.
I shall agree without a shred of debate that there are Dopers out there with brains, that’s why I love this place. Can you imagine: A Non-Disclosure Agreement with 22,000 signators??
these are few of my favorite things…
Oh well it is amazing how long a thread will live isn’t it? But the point of making the beast was to do an end run around offshore suppliers that we didn’t want to support. I am not saying they were with the terrorists or anything… but you draw your own conclusions. Btw the way send the scuplture to me and I will blow a huge apple shaped cutout right in the middle of it with the plasma cutter. Then I will pack it in my car and drive it to 1 Inifinite Loop and set it on the front porch of Steve Jobs office, ring the bell…and run like hell. hhahhhhahahhahahahahha
It’s a darned good thing I’ve broken bread with you and offered to raise your kids, or I’d be skeered of you right now.
Yeah, darned offshore back-mounted hoo-hahs. I don’t WANT a big Apple logo in it, to me it is a lovely arc of Titanium, unsullied by corporate America.
Speaking of the Apple Logo, I’ve tried for the last month to make these people at Apple understand that MY name ought to be in the database as the person who PURCHASED MY TiBook, not the nice gal at the Apple Store who sold it to me. I’ve gotten the snooty-assed " But, SIR, we use Mac OS in our database, it’s so very easy to change and fix this problem !! Bye !! ". I’ve heard that crap FOUR times now.
They can take their potsmoking granola chewing Birkenstock uppity-faced attitude and cram it where sunlight does not pervade, but by god they are GONNA FIX THIS STUPID ERROR.
I mean,uh, they’ve offered an iFix to my pesky little iProblem, and all I have to do is iFax the receipt to a woman in Austin, TX who works for iApple Care, who ought to have the damned data in FRONT OF HER on her fancypants iApple Data Base.
