Hello Jim
I have not managed to draw titanium wire. Even with a tungsten draw
plate. The sparks are flying of the wire, and the surface gets verry
bad. And the friction is often bigger than the strength of the wire.
What are you using as a lubricant?
Greetings
Martin Niemeijer
N design
Molenkreek 23
8032 JK Zwolle
The Netherlands
info@ndesign.nl ; http://www.ndesign.nl
Phone +31 (0)38 4539203
Mobile phone +31 (0)6 51831576
Martin, I do not have a set of tungsten carbide draw plates so I can
not comment on the use of them from experience. I can say from
experience that you can draw titanium wire with some success using
copper as the lubricant. To do this a copper tube is drawn over the
Ti wire and then both are drawn through the plate. After the drawing
the copper is etched off the Ti wire. The surface is not great but
it is no worse than most Ti wire I have bought. It is not an easy
process as the coper tube will often break and require the removal
of the remaining copper and then continuing on with a new tube but I
have reduced Grade 2 by 30% in this manner. The real problem is
annealing the Ti for further reduction as I do not have a vacuum
furnace and this is required to do the annealing with out making the
Ti brittle from absorbing oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen in the
annealing process. If you have carbide draw plates you might be able
to use tube with higher tensile strength than copper like carbon
steel this might reduce the breakage of the tube but I don’t know
for sure
Regards,
Jim
Hello Jim Your way of reducing the titanum wire with a tube is rather
expensive. This is maybe the couse that thin titanium wire of 0.5 mm
(0.02") is rather expencive. But it also may be expensive due to
small amounts of sale. I have tried to pull the wire direct with all
kind of lubricants, even Mo2S pure. However I have forgotten to try
copper past as lubricant. Or maybe if I paint it with some
Polyurethane floor paint this will maybe work. I will give it a try.
The aim is to reduce the friction of the titanium to the
countersurface.
I found that I have two types of wire at home rolled and pulled one.
The rolled wire has diagonal scratches. Titanium can very good be
rolled (with rolling there is no rubbing friction between the rolls
and the material. Titanium has the effect of smearing the counter
surface of tools and in a drawing plate this will happens dramaticly.
About anealing, don’t be afraid to aneal with a torch. If you aneal
fast to dull red, you wil not have trouble with H brittlenes, only
some oxides on the surface. My soldering picks are still not brittle
and they are heated up hunderts of times. Also we are not using high
alloyed titanium and not building airplanes. We are not using the
titanium strengts at its limits. So some % of quality loss is not
important.
Greetings Martin Niemeijer N design Molenkreek 23 8032 JK Zwolle The
Netherlands info@ndesign.nl ; www.ndesign.nl Phone +31 (0)38 4539203
Mobile phone +31 (0)6 51831576