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Q&As since 1989
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Heat colouring of titanium
Q. My name is Celeste, I am a jeweler in Australia. I often work with titanium, and have perfected heating titanium jewellery with a torch to achieve a blue colouration. Can anyone help me with temperatures required to achieve other colours? I have a precise kiln, or a gas torch.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks,
trade jeweller - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
2006
A. Try www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/s_bib.htm website-there you can find one article by Erhard Brepohl on that subject.Good luck!
Goran Budija- Cerovski vrh Croatia
2006
2006
A. Heat tinting of titanium:
pale gold straw-385 °C
purple-412 °C
deep blue-440 °C
red purple-565 °C
brown gray-648 °C
green blue-925 °C
According to O.Untracht:
Jewelry Concepts and Technology
[affil link
on Amazon], London 1982.
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
2006
A. Hi Celeste,
I do a lot of titanium work.With Titanium colouring, I use heat exclusively.
However,electrically Ti. can be coloured in many more variations, but needs to be prepared by using hydrofluoric acid. A very dangerous acid and not worth the effort- and when you colour Ti electrically the final result has a matte finish,which I don't like.I like shiny.
I just recently bought Reactive Metals', "Niobium starter kit". Go check out their web, they got some cool stuff.
Now, Niobium is great but cannot be heat colored, (other than black) but with DC electricity it give some amazing colors! And it is as soft as silver and work hardens very slowly
I found a cheap way to make a DC regulated power supply at Titanium Man.com to colour Nb.
I have various tutorials on my site with more coming on this subject. All my designs and techniques may be copied without my permission.Ask any question.
- Simpsonbay, St.Maarten, Netherlands Antillies
A. Hi Celesta
Go to you tube and search out 'joe pipe.' I've been able to heat titanium to orange and bright orange. 1018 steel at bright orange is
2100 °F. Not sure with titanium but it should be higher as the Critical point is higher. Joshua.
- Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, Canada
September 18, 2008
How to keep titanium from changing color
Q. Good morning,
I work for space industry & automotive; I'm very interested in a solution to prevent change of colours of titanium.
I can't understand difference between type of oxide that you obtain on titanium by chemical Anodizing and heat treatment.
Any publications to suggest?
Thanks in advance.
Luca
- Rome, Italy
January 20, 2019
A. Hi Luca
If you don't want change of titanium color, you need to do anodizing with alkaline bath. I read some articles that in this kind of electrolyte you don't have the color change. But, the color change is related with the thickness of titanium dioxide layer. Corrosion resistance is related with thickness layer too. When the thickness layers increase, the corrosion resistance increases too.
Protus - Luzerna, SC. Brasil
February 27, 2019
Thanks Ghisana. Yes, the oxides are actually essentially colorless. The perceived colors are because of an interference pattern whereby light bounces off both the surface of the oxide and the surface of the component under the oxide and "interferes". It's the same concept as the rainbow sheen which a drop of oil imparts to a puddle of water.
Once the oxide coating is sufficiently thick, those partial wavelength interference patterns go away.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
February 2019
Titanium heat finish
Q. So I have a pair of titanium scooter bars and I want to give them a heat finish since it looks cool, but I'm not sure if it would damage the titanium/welds in the titanium.
Thanks !
- Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium
November 15, 2019
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