Anodising Titanium?

What's this, Tony - a trendy deluxe Divisionmaster in an anodised Titanium case?

Cheers Tim Tim Leech Dutton Dry-Dock

Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs

You betcha!

Seriously, fancied using Ti to make clock wheels. Could make a really interesting-looking clock with anodised finish on them

Regards, Tony

A lot of titanium body jewellery is coloured. When I was at the tooling exhibition at the NEC I found a stand that coated cutting tools, TiAN, TiCN etc. They also did the decorative coating on body jewellery, I believe this was some kind of oxide coating from different gases. The colour depended on the gas used, the time and temperature I seem to remember.

I thought I had a brochure but cannot seem to find it. They were based somewhere in the Midlands. No idea what the cost would be. The coating is very thin, if the parts are polished first you can get some amazing results.

If I find the details I will send them to you offline.

Lionel

exhibition at the NEC I found a stand that

body jewellery, I believe this was some

used, the time and temperature I seem to

somewhere in the Midlands. No idea what the

can get some amazing results.

From

May 24, 2001 Actually, Gene, anodizing titanium alloys to get pretty colors is rather simple. When my son was in 4th grade, he took the Chemistry section and almost won the overall prize in his school science fair with a project on using different electrolytes to color titanium.

Of the four solutions he used, he prefered the TSP over the table salt, the lemon juice, and the baking soda solutions, although they all worked well. Steve got the 24 volts he needed from four 6 volt batteries, and the CP titanium he used colored almost instantly. He felt the TSP gave a deeper color, but it might have been a trick of the light.

Bill Seeley wrote a couple of articles for Metal Progress and JOM in the early

80's, and one of his articles showed how the color is dependent on the voltage used. Heck, buy a bunch of batteries and check it out for yourself- it's kinda cool, and with a small setup you'll be able to paint the colors on.

Lionel

I can tell you a little. The different colors are produced by different thicknesses of the oxide layer forming an interference filter. The thickness of the oxide layer is determined primarily by the voltage used in the anodizing. For my experiments, I used an artist's brush dipped in cleaning solution (an electrolite, some use lemon juice), with a turn of bare wire wrapped around the top of the bristles. That wire was connected to a power supply. The other lead of the power supply was clipped to the workpiece and the brush was used as a paintbrush. The colors range fom a dark amber to a deep blue with amber produced at about 20 volts and a bright blue at around 50. The speed of moving the brush and the spread of the brush will effect the color.

Kevin Gallimore

Hi Tony, for what it's worth, Sheffield Hallam University has a special coatings division, mainly for hard coating cutting tools in R&D situations. It maybe worth contacting them, as your requirements could be interesting PR for them.... Well it's worth a try.

Joules