Changing color on Titanium ?

Watched some videos on changing the color on Ti and decided to have a go with a belt clip from a niteye light.
So it says its Titanium alloy

After using heat and in different areas the only color i saw was purple, no greens and the metal started to turn red quickly. does that mean this is garbage Ti or i ran it too hot? here is the weard part as soon as i hit the clip on my power polish wheel the colors disappeared and the clip is back to a mirror finish. what is this ERIE nonsense

Working on stuff with heat interference fit, I've color changed metals with a torch before. Yeah, the color layer polishes off on the buffing wheel.

What tip are you using? I only use a fine braze tip on heat interference, certainly not a cutting head. Too much heat too evenly will give mostly one color change. Maybe heat sink part of the clip so there can be a temperature gradient?

Figured out the problem. The belt clip is NOT Ti but of stainless. As it is magnetic. The bezels are infact Ti so going to try a bezel ring:

Please post your results. I'm curious about this project :thumbsup:

Mr. Nobody said:

Figured out the problem. The belt clip is NOT Ti but of stainless. As it is magnetic.

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Ti is technically non-magnetic by itself, but it is paramagnetic. Most variants of stainless are mostly nonmagnetic. A couple of stainlesses are weakly magnetic. Paramagnetic is weird stuff. It can react magnetically, but retains no magnetic properties of its own, it can only react to magnets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium#Physical_properties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramagnetism

Paramagnetism is a form of magnetism whereby certain materials are attracted by an externally applied magnetic field, and form internal, induced magnetic fields in the direction of the applied magnetic field.

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So titanium is "sorta magnetic." Learn something new every day. I thought it was totally nonmagnetic until I checked physical properties.

The stainless varieties I'm aware of turn a nice honey gold color under overheating. The stainless exhaust on my motorcycle does it within 400 miles of an immaculate buff wheel cleaning.

Bluish would be overheating chromed steel and purplish would be overheating carbon steel.

If you blue a steel by overheating, you "anneal" it. It softens it and removes tempering. The torch job may have ruined the springiness of the clip, as it might now flex and take a set.

Edit: I just realized that Niteye said titanium alloy, not pure Ti. That's an alloy of a different color.

OK who's ready for some exotic color ?

Can't wait.

Belt clip definitely NOT Titanium as niteye and jetbeam advertises.


Here is some Real Titanium and Stainless Steel hit with couple thousand degrees of Propane.

Man the colors just don't look good as in real life! Meh!

Still looks good, maybe the pics will pop better if you take them outside with some ambient but not direct sunlight? I can't photo anything worth a darn indoors.

pure or high quality titanium will change color simply with handling. The oils in your skin will react with the surface of the metal. The cool part of that is, MY titanium may not look exactly like yours!

Limey Johnson said:

pure or high quality titanium will change color simply with handling. The oils in your skin will react with the surface of the metal. The cool part of that is, MY titanium may not look exactly like yours!

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Do you have any pics of this occurring? One of the notable characteristics of Ti is that is is NOT reactive. I have never seen this in any of my Ti Customs or other Ti tools and gadgets. I HAVE colored Ti with heat successfully, and seen others do it with charged chemical baths, but never have seen it just from handling.

Limey Johnson said:

pure or high quality titanium will change color simply with handling. The oils in your skin will react with the surface of the metal. The cool part of that is, MY titanium may not look exactly like yours!

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Like surgical tools that are Ti

nbp said:

Do you have any pics of this occurring? One of the notable characteristics of Ti is that is is NOT reactive. I have never seen this in any of my Ti Customs or other Ti tools and gadgets. I HAVE colored Ti with heat successfully, and seen others do it with charged chemical baths, but never have seen it just from handling.

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I do not. However I am a Zippo lighter collector, and in 2003 they made a Zippo with a solid titanium case. There have been pics of the results of handling. They are even packaged in bags when new. So my comment is based on "hearsay" and research, not physical evidence.

So JETBEAM & NITEYE false advertise. Both clips are NOT Titanium

nbp said:

Do you have any pics of this occurring? One of the notable characteristics of Ti is that is is NOT reactive.

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Titanium dioxide is not particularly reactive. With energetic impetus, it can do a lot of really weird stuff.

Mr. Nobody said:

So JETBEAM & NITEYE false advertise. Both clips are NOT Titanium

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Only maybe. Some people call titanium the "really expensive aluminum." Titanium is often alloyed with a whole plethora of stuff. Who knows, it might even get nickle plated during the treatment.

Consider that they only claimed that it was a titanium alloy. That could mean a whole lot of things.

Metals do weird stuff when alloyed with other metals. Just saying.

Usually when they say ti pocket clip its just titanium coated ss

It seems that the card that came with that Ti Zippo stated that handling would change the cases' color. It should be noted that they were bead blasted, so the rough finish is more likely to accumulate crud than a machined finish, perhaps causing a darkening of the surface. Not really a true reaction that I can tell. Aside from that comment from Zippo I have never seen nor can I find reference to handling changing Ti's color. Were that the case, men's wedding rings all over the place would be changing colors left and right. Heat and charged ionic baths remain the surest way to anodize Ti to a different color.

I will have to find the pics I posted of a McGizmo Pak I torched. Turned out awesome.

Edit: Here is was. This started as a bare Ti McG body tube.
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/4494147

I can attest to handling not color changing a titanium wedding ring. Now I know I should have blowtorched it.

more_vampires said:

Titanium dioxide is not particularly reactive. With energetic impetus, it can do a lot of really weird stuff.

Only maybe. Some people call titanium the "really expensive aluminum." Titanium is often alloyed with a whole plethora of stuff. Who knows, it might even get nickle plated during the treatment.

Consider that they only claimed that it was a titanium alloy. That could mean a whole lot of things.

Metals do weird stuff when alloyed with other metals. Just saying.

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Titanium dioxide is typically used as a pigment for paint. It's as close to pure white in paint as you can get.

Any surface finishes applied to titanium that roughen up the surface (bead blasting, sanding or sandblast) will allow for skin oils to be absorbed which darkens the appearance. Polishing the surface like a ring will keep the oils from absorption.

Alloy titanium, like 3.25 and 6AL4V are harder and have higher tensile yields than commercially pure titanium known as CP2. CP2 is much cheaper than most of the alloyed titanium's.

If you don't like the darkened color of ti, you can use a solvent like acetone, alcohol, or MEK to remove the skin oils.