It’s pretty special to be able to make this happen after all these years of wanting to try it. I’ve got huge respect for the inventors of the process and the time and effort they put into developing it and patenting it 20 years ago. I’m very excited to see what we can do with Titanium now that we can forge weld it! Maybe I’ll try a lower temperature next time though 😅😂🔥 You can check out the bonus shop improvement video here by the way! www.asteeleblock.com/bonus
Hey alec, i saw something similar in a metallurgical paper the other week. Same procedure, making some obscure layered metal for interface reaction studies, but using vacuum! I suspect argon is actually better, because a small leak in the canister cannot spoil it. Even with a pump running, vacuum needs stupidly large cross sections to be maintained against a leak, not a thin long handle. Simply because it is so very much not dense and moving matter at such low pressure takes a load of space. But i dont think this was patent worthy at all. Metallurgists probably knew this methods for decades and some schmuck just made a patent. Happens like all the time. Cool process though.
I might be wrong but even if something is patented, I think you can still recreate something you just can't sell it. Like think of the vice-grips series from a couple years back, I'm sure there's a patent on that design but there was no reason not to recreate it
It’s because they make money from their content that it’s classed as commercial use, they could however strongly argue this is educational use. It also doesn’t matter because the patent has expired
@@scottsolar5884 yes the titanium patent ran out in 2023, it was brought up in the discord when the cast iron chips canister video released and after some digging and discussion about the educational use laws of it realised it was expired
This is the first time in awhile I've seen a TH-cam video that made me genuinely think "That was it? It ended there? I need more!" This was so fucking cool.
Always love the creativity going on in the workshop, i just have one recommendation for safety while working with media blasters/cabinets. I HIGHLY recommend using a particle respirator or your supplied air while working with it due to the amount of fine particulates that are in the air during operation! If it can abrade metal then it sure as hell can abrade and clog your lungs, so stay creative and stay safe Alec!
Alec, as a fellow craftsman I really respect what you have done with your life so far. I'm a 25 year tile mason that is retiring to pursue my real passion, but I wanted a way to commemorate my decades of masonry with something really special. I wonder what a fellow would charge for a damascus margin trowel... I would likely never use it, but it would be sort of a shelf piece to sit with a few pictures of some of my favorite work over the years.
@@grahamwilson1358 Congrats on not watching all the video to get the context for the original post, and then ignorantly commenting on it. Wait, not congats, shame.
You think this is bad, medication is patented. Developing a life saving medication and then making sure people can only get it from you and letting you drive up the price for zero reason
This is the reason I’m subscribed: i live for the experimental stuff. After seeing those lines, a kris dagger made if titanium damascus would be INCREDIBLE.
100%! I love the experimental stuff. I think I first subscribed when Alec did the copper Damascus. Megumi something if memory serves. A quick Wikipedia and I think it was Mokume-gane. I wasn't so far away.
Depending on how well the Titanium sticks to the can, he might be able to embed a high carbon steel/SS layer in the middle so it will look amazing and hold an edge.
while it would be a very cool piece, itanium (as far as i know) is terrible at holding an edge so it'd basically only be ornamental. doesnt mean you shouldnt do it though, it would be really cool!
hey gent, as a titanium cnc operator myself a tip for your next attempt at cutting it clean would be ceramic carbide inserts. typically we use the iscar brand personally but feel free to shop around.
If the steel jacket did bond with the titanium you could make a beautiful and sturdy knife. Titanium doesn't have great edge retention in my experience so being able to add a high carbon/tool steel edge would go a long way to helping with that. Edit for spelling
Alas it was mild steel. But it would probably be easier to forge tool steel onto that surface than the titanium, seeing as our boy Alec has more experience with that.
Yea, but heating up the titanium to get colors would over-temper the edge steel unfortunately. Need a way to keep the edge cool. Or maybe just throw the whole thing in the tempering oven as if it were steel and the titanium will get nice colors automatically?
Yes he has glasses. Hilarious. Anyone who wears glasses clearly resembles harry potter. Sir you have a gift. Peak comedy. If you are not currently touring you are wasting your god given talents.
@@jatochgaatjeniksaan3307 wow, someone being sarcastic about a joke of a smith being a a wizard bc he can create things from "nothing" and is British, you are soooo certain man, not quite close to him, even if he dyes his hair
when heating metal for color, I keep a bottle of co2 near by with an air blower. I can heat parts faster and "freeze" my desired color in place by shielding with the co2 when I see the color I want so that no further color change happens as it cools.
Electricity is the best way to color titanium, different voltages yield different colors. With a bench top power supply u can fine tune the exact color u want with the twist of a knob
while anodizing titanium is the best for getting specific colours, using heat allows for some nice gradients in the colouring, which is relatively hard using electricity.
In my experience you can get gradients by using low amperage. My grade 2 and 5 samples behave slightly differently under the same voltage and electrolyte concentration settings.
@@hassanjaved1904 you can get some gold-purple, magenta, aqua-green, and light green with andozing that you can’t achieve with heat. You can easily Google some gradients.
For Flow rates, in medicine. 2-5LPM is low flow or Normal. 6-10 is a medium flow, and anything above 10LPM is High flow, but when high flow is indicated we usually run up to 15LPM. Just a thought and maybe help on your flow rate decisions.
@@AlecSteele Make a preheat chamber for the gas so the heat on the inside is more even. You could also try plating the titanium with some other metal so it doesn't oxidise without the inert gas, or do it in vacuum. Use just two pieces to test, you can fold them later.
I was gonna say the vague language was a bit suspicious (since the point of patents is to give all the details in exchange for legal protection from competition for a certain period), but that makes it seem more legit.
Saying that heat is everything needed to „colour“ the titanium with oxides, couldn‘t you use the Paragon heat treating oven to aim for very specific patterns/ colours? This could result in some insane builds :o
The color comes from the thickness of the layer. Same basic notion as the color on soap films - thin film interference. Getting a specific color means aiming for a specific thickness of oxide layer. If you can control that oxide layer? You're set.
Timascus is a big thing in the knife collecting community. It's used mostly for pocket clips, backspacers, and pivot collars. Some of the coolest Timascus clips I have are made by a company called Kunwu Knives. You can see examples on their website. People also make black Timascus, and Zircuti with zirconium.
Titanium lava noodles flying across the workshop is as bonkers as it gets. Alec was pretty close to "inventing" the titanium flame thrower there (Not a flame thrower made of titanium, but a flame thrower with a titanium fueled flame).
9:21 You have an outline, 51%. Rest is you, aim for flow. Somewhere between boredom & overwhelmed. Awesome idea, sweet work hombre *subscribed* great job
One thing to be aware of, regarding the ad read: while squarespace has a very nice, modern interface, you cannot back up your site. May i repeat, No Backups. When they go down, yoy go down, and the recovery? Rebuild your site somewhere else. Back to the video. This is incredible!
It would be cool if you did it the traditional way too. Getting a piece of grade 2, then grade 5(much thicker than what was used here) then hitting it to stretch it and folding it over and over in a forge and then hammering it out into a knife. Its actually easier than you'd think, you just need the tools(forge and large hammer or automatic hammer/press which you already have).
Patents often don't include exact details or variations used in production, to make it harder to replicate, so things like holes/positions shown could well be non-optimal
I believe that this was a method patent (often called a process patent.) The non-obvious method of producing something is what is covered, not the final product itself. The method patent would be infringed only if someone followed the same steps described in the patent to achieve the same result. As such, method patents do tend to describe something pretty close to the optimal known method, because if a method patent describes a suboptimal process and then someone else starts producing the same thing with another method that is more than trivially different from the patented steps, then the new producer could very well be found to not be infringing the method patent, and would be free to use the superior method without paying royalties.
I would be the cannister was not hooked up and flowing Ar or He while in the original patent holder's forge furnace. Purge and crimp the tubes before charging.
Also if you patent the exact process, the patent then covers ONLY that specification. That's why you leave it open enough that someone else can't just look at your expensive patent, change something miniscule and call it their version as it (in many cases) wouldn't be protected by the original patent anymore. That's what I learnt from IPR-lawyer helping me protect a design - leave it just vague enough that it goes through the processing but afterwards if I'd decide to make any chances in the production items, the protected design would still apply. Like leaving out exact sizes, angles, materials etc.
@@Lanka0Kerayou can include quite a large range of variations in your patent claim to cover stuff like that. You can specify many optimal or non-optimal methods or variations within the method pretty easily. It’s why patents almost always read like word salad, they’re worded very specifically to cover alternatives.
I can guarantee the 2 hole method is sub optimal. the corners can trap oxygen. 1 feed hole with an intentional porous weld would always be better at expelling oxygen in every direction.
This is surreal - I was literally telling my friend about timascus last night(I made his wedding ring) and now you upload this. So cool. Can't wait to see you do more videos on this. Titanium is one of my favourite materials to work with, so I'm really keen to see what you'll do with it!
The best way to color titanium is actually with electricity. If you look into it, if you control the voltage you can dial the colors down to almost any color of the rainbow with incredible control and rpecision
I’ve done anodizing on grade 2 and 5 with high and low amperage set ups. Using a low amp set up will anodize more slowly and let you slowly (on the order of double-digit seconds) eye the gradient as you build it.
@@robertjb001 in my testing with the same electrolyte and bank of batteries the grades behave slightly differently. More specific testing is warranted.
There's just something special that tickles the brain in a good way about a Ripped British man fabricating something with classical music in the background. Who also sounds like a mad professor at times.
It was a eutectic reaction with the Ti and steel. Too hot! Ti on its own won't melt at 2100F, just oxidize severely, but if its in a lot of pressure against steel, or Ni, or Co, it will get to partially liquid. 1750-1850F is probably hot enough to forge weld the Ti pieces, and not get the eutectic with the steel cannister.
It's one of the noble gasses on the periodic table, for future reference to other gases that are also inert. But I should clarify that any gas can be compressed within a sealed chamber, and that can still vent explosively.
It's also not actually fully inert, it doesn't want to react with stuff but it will participate in some chemical reactions regardless of the fact that it really doesn't want to
@@noodlelynoodle. But for some reference on how inert this is, the primary compound that proves this is Argon fluorohydride (HArF). This compound is only stable up to like 17 degrees K. Alternatively, the working principle of ArF lasers relies on the formation of a temporary Argon Fluor complex. That said, that is an extremely high barrier to define inertness at. For all practical purposes, argon is inert, and it's far cheaper to get than the alternatives by virtue that you can get argon easily by the fractional distillation of air, making it an intrinsic byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen / oxygen.
Patent was held by alpha knife supply and they named it timascus. There is also black timascus where zirconium is used to give it some grey/shiny black bands, my favorite. People have been making timascus for a long time and selling it even with the patent. Chad nichols damascus makes one called mokuti, and their black timascus called zircuti
I taught my boss the basics of metalworking and used your videos as a perfect reference for him. He has progressed in a year what took me 4 years+. Before I could even suggest it he was making his own alloys and teaching himself how to make simple crossguards. He needs a lot of work on refining and detail work, but it's amazing what he's already capable of. Guess that makes you a damn good teacher, lol. I remember the original titanium video, and look at you now, 6 years later and doing things I doubt even YOU thought you'd be able to.
The reason for the colours is less due to the presence of different oxides but mostly the rate at which the oxides are growing. Titanium oxides are nanometers thick and therefore interact with light. Other elements (such as aluminium) simply suppress the rate of titanium formation . With continued heating it is possible to cycle through these colours!
2100F is way too hot. 1900F is all you need, maybe 1750F. You created a eutectic reaction with the steel at 2100F. And no power hammer - use a press with low strain rates at first.
No idea why the heck i was recommended this video, but having watched the TV show "Forged in Fire" in the past I was curious... 15 minutes later and I'm desperate for more! I'm so glad this was posted a month ago, as hopefully it means there is more videos on your channel for me to binge tonight 🤪
Pretty sure that's the plating the Spirit of Fire had in Halo Wars. In the lore it's really great at protecting against kinetic damage. Not sure what I'd be like in reality but would definitely like to see slo-mo testing of its properties
If you attach a tig gas lens(diffuser) or even just shove some fine steel wool into the end of your purgeline. It helps spread that gas much easier. So your inline hole wouldn't be much an issue
3:35 your cameraman is assuming the patent was written to match what they're actually doing. I looked at some of my employer's patents long ago and was surprised how little the description and drawings resembled the product. Perhaps the patentee in this case is less concerned with obfuscation and/or is more honest, but don't be too surprised if the patent ends up being barely useful.
Thanks, this video made me wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the intermetallic problem. I ran my little brainstorm past ChatGPT and get the impression it isn't new as I had hoped and maybe you already abandoned the idea. Basically make an alloy using similar but a little different metals. For example, Vanadium to go Titanium, and Manganese to go with Iron. The similarity of Vanadium to Ti means V might be substituted into the crystal lattice where Ti would normally go. But the difference would screw up the lattice. The lattice might get so messy it isn't really a lattice anymore so no crystals so no more intermetallic compound. Apparently something like that is something materials scientists are looking into to make High Entropy Alloys (HEA) which sometimes have useful properties. To make one, I think you would need an equal number of Ti and V atoms, and equal Mn, Fe. With luck it might make a better knife. But if that is too expensive to mess with, smaller amounts V and Mn might poison crystal formation enough to be helpful. Other metal neighbors of Ti and Fe might work, some are likely expensive though. A different approach that might not work would be alloy TiFe with much larger and/or smaller atoms. Something like lithium might not so much disrupt the crystal as worm its way in between the TiFe atoms and wedge some distance between them. That might just pre-stress the material, but the extra distance might weaken the forces between TiFe so it is more ductile. A potential difficulty in trying it out is the 3rd metal also needs to be soluble in TiFe.
@@phalanx3803the expiration is a key part of patents. Patents are a compromise, they encourage people to make new technologies by protecting exclusivity for a short time, but also put their process and methods out there publicly. When it expires, everybody can gain from their work. You can see this in the video; Alec used the patent as a guide. Much better than people and guilds jealously hoarding trade secrets.
I was doin this stuff in a coal forge back in the day. Just enough for bolsters n stuff but i layered zirconium, 6al4v and nickel. You can also use an argon purge.
Please make a Dive Knife with this. I'm a Canadian clearance Diver, and we use titanium Dive knives because of they aren't magnetic, so when swimming up on a sea mine (for disposal) you won't set of any magnetic fuzing built into the mine. Just an idea.
I'm not a patent lawyer, but I presumed you were allowed to produce something based upon an active patent, so long as you don't engage in commercial activity by selling it or distributing it. For instance, you should, in theory, be able to make something that is fully patent protected, show the process to people (since it's freely available on the patent database anyway), but you cannot sell or distribute the thing you've created. I could be totally wrong, and I guess there's a whole lot of nuance involved, so yeah. If there are any patent lawyers on here, I'd love to be corrected! Thanks for the vid Alec. 👊
In 1872 another pair of Englishmen, Woods and Clark, filed for patent of an acid and weather resistant iron alloy containing 30-35% chromium and 2% tungsten, effectively the first ever patent on what would now be considered a stainless steel.
at my job i regularly work with solid titanium parts and screw, a lot of jobs require that when changing something out you throw the screws out and use brand new ones, every screw is around £115-120 or $150, and one parts ive seen break is a solid 5kg chunk of titanium, i dont even know how much that might be worth, since it broke i took it home and now its sitting on my fireplace
I'm feeling so old. I remember when Mr Steele was still a young'n whackin' around England on pure grit and passion. Now he's all grown up, still living his dream.
@@maxpowers5310 as if that requires a website lol. honestly at this point i just assume everything advertised on yt is a scam. and its usually true sadly
I will have to make some custom alloy powders too for my 3D printing system that converts oxides into raw metal with out added gas fluxing like the argon (entirely energy flux based system that not only purges and protects the material but actually extracts it (ie its not pushing by displacement, but rather attracting in order to leave even a pure vacuum in the specified region)
3:43 so that’s why purge times exist. at least for purge pipe welding there are set times that you need to let the pipe purge for to make sure %100 of the oxygen is out. even tho this is a small box it’s got lots of nooks and crannies for air to be in so like 5-10 minutes might be needed i’m no expert on this stuff still in school for a lot of it but that’s at least what i know about purging and that’s why we in the welding industry only need one hole and i can’t imagine it would be to much different from this
patents: its not about the result or end product, its about the process or mecanics described or delevoped to archive the results. For example, que "light bulb" is a concept, like "titanium damascus steel", the way people maked the light bulb were many, size, process, materials, etc. So, dont be afraid in the future. (Unless you are following a patent to the letter to recreate something that in one way or another makes you money, aka someones else process)
It’s pretty special to be able to make this happen after all these years of wanting to try it. I’ve got huge respect for the inventors of the process and the time and effort they put into developing it and patenting it 20 years ago. I’m very excited to see what we can do with Titanium now that we can forge weld it! Maybe I’ll try a lower temperature next time though 😅😂🔥
You can check out the bonus shop improvement video here by the way! www.asteeleblock.com/bonus
5:22 and 3:04 from “Making one piece stiletto dagger part 3” still warms my heart.
Please be careful, that was a close call with all that liquid molten titanium squeezing out towards you.
Sweet. So is there any update on getting the steam hammer connected to a steam boiler?
@@joshuabarron8535 He talks bout it a little on the bonus video on the website
Hey alec, i saw something similar in a metallurgical paper the other week. Same procedure, making some obscure layered metal for interface reaction studies, but using vacuum! I suspect argon is actually better, because a small leak in the canister cannot spoil it. Even with a pump running, vacuum needs stupidly large cross sections to be maintained against a leak, not a thin long handle. Simply because it is so very much not dense and moving matter at such low pressure takes a load of space. But i dont think this was patent worthy at all. Metallurgists probably knew this methods for decades and some schmuck just made a patent. Happens like all the time. Cool process though.
I might be wrong but even if something is patented, I think you can still recreate something you just can't sell it. Like think of the vice-grips series from a couple years back, I'm sure there's a patent on that design but there was no reason not to recreate it
It’s because they make money from their content that it’s classed as commercial use, they could however strongly argue this is educational use. It also doesn’t matter because the patent has expired
Vise grips patent ran out.
Has the titanium patent run out?
@@scottsolar5884 yes the titanium patent ran out in 2023, it was brought up in the discord when the cast iron chips canister video released and after some digging and discussion about the educational use laws of it realised it was expired
There is also a bit of messy loophole. You can break a patent for personal use and sell the item when done with it.
If he just made it he would’ve been fine it’s the video where he could’ve made revenue that would’ve been a problem.
This is the first time in awhile I've seen a TH-cam video that made me genuinely think "That was it? It ended there? I need more!" This was so fucking cool.
@@asteroiddropper
that's what I thought.
what's happening to this Damascus billet now?!
No this actually amazing I want more
200th like
Some legit Cyberpunk blades incoming!
How did anyone else from billions of people not notice it ?
Always love the creativity going on in the workshop, i just have one recommendation for safety while working with media blasters/cabinets. I HIGHLY recommend using a particle respirator or your supplied air while working with it due to the amount of fine particulates that are in the air during operation! If it can abrade metal then it sure as hell can abrade and clog your lungs, so stay creative and stay safe Alec!
Alec, as a fellow craftsman I really respect what you have done with your life so far. I'm a 25 year tile mason that is retiring to pursue my real passion, but I wanted a way to commemorate my decades of masonry with something really special. I wonder what a fellow would charge for a damascus margin trowel... I would likely never use it, but it would be sort of a shelf piece to sit with a few pictures of some of my favorite work over the years.
Everyone, like this so he can see it
@@alexandermueller4115 Cheers and thank you!
This needs to be top comment!❤
Let this man be heard!!!! ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
Boom knee grow, mr 200 is here!
That’s why I love employing younger people, they not intimidated that the patent worked for 20 years, they still have ideas on how to improve it
😂
@@AlecSteelethat exchange would be a great short
Improvements of patent process is a way to open a patent of your own. If he wants to and shows it improved/changed the product enough.
rubbish that's not what happened. an old bloke invented it young guys nicked the process as it was forgot. and claim its there process
@@grahamwilson1358 Congrats on not watching all the video to get the context for the original post, and then ignorantly commenting on it. Wait, not congats, shame.
Having a patent on how one can mix metal is like saying it's illegal to fart at the same frequency as someone else.
Ya but it was America
You think this is bad, medication is patented. Developing a life saving medication and then making sure people can only get it from you and letting you drive up the price for zero reason
All patents are just excuses for greedy individuals to keep other people from having good things.
Something like 80% of corn is copyrighted. It’s all very stupid.
@@Elnidax because medication requires research which requires tons of expenditure so if patents did not exist then u dont get the research money back.
This is the reason I’m subscribed: i live for the experimental stuff.
After seeing those lines, a kris dagger made if titanium damascus would be INCREDIBLE.
100%! I love the experimental stuff. I think I first subscribed when Alec did the copper Damascus. Megumi something if memory serves.
A quick Wikipedia and I think it was Mokume-gane. I wasn't so far away.
@@duncanbrown4184 I love learning with him
Depending on how well the Titanium sticks to the can, he might be able to embed a high carbon steel/SS layer in the middle so it will look amazing and hold an edge.
I'm adding my vote for this one as a project. Kris dagger.
while it would be a very cool piece, itanium (as far as i know) is terrible at holding an edge so it'd basically only be ornamental. doesnt mean you shouldnt do it though, it would be really cool!
Man I remember watching the original attempt video, crazy it’s been 6 years!
Same!! Absolutely wild it's been that long
@@JamyRyals Thanks for sticking around for so long!!
Was that back when Sam the farrier was around??
No way was that 6 years ago..
i have been here since MAKING USA FLAG DAMASCUS STEEL!!! made in Nov 8, 2016
Hi Alec .
We use masonry cutting and grinding discs for titanium as the loading on normal metal discs slows the process and over heats the titanium.
hey gent, as a titanium cnc operator myself a tip for your next attempt at cutting it clean would be ceramic carbide inserts. typically we use the iscar brand personally but feel free to shop around.
Sandvik sells H13A inserts that's meant for titanium and superalloys. Tungaloy is a pretty good brand too. Fellow CNC Operator here.
I use a wet abrasive saw at work and have no problems with unalloyed titanium.
Or edm wire
Yeahhhhh, NO😂😂I hope this is a major troll joke lol. I hope you respond 😂
Persoanlly i was wondering if there could be a chemical process the selective attacks the outer steel without touching the titanium
If the steel jacket did bond with the titanium you could make a beautiful and sturdy knife. Titanium doesn't have great edge retention in my experience so being able to add a high carbon/tool steel edge would go a long way to helping with that.
Edit for spelling
I always wanted a tool stool edge.
A steel layer for the edge jacked by another metal.
A san mai with good steel on the spine and edge with Titanium Damascus sides would look bad ass for sure.
Alas it was mild steel. But it would probably be easier to forge tool steel onto that surface than the titanium, seeing as our boy Alec has more experience with that.
Yea, but heating up the titanium to get colors would over-temper the edge steel unfortunately. Need a way to keep the edge cool. Or maybe just throw the whole thing in the tempering oven as if it were steel and the titanium will get nice colors automatically?
*If Harry Potter was a metalworker*
Ha! 😂
Yes he has glasses. Hilarious. Anyone who wears glasses clearly resembles harry potter. Sir you have a gift. Peak comedy. If you are not currently touring you are wasting your god given talents.
@@jatochgaatjeniksaan3307 wow, someone being sarcastic about a joke of a smith being a a wizard bc he can create things from "nothing" and is British, you are soooo certain man, not quite close to him, even if he dyes his hair
@miguelangelespinalramirez2900 learn english
“You’re a welder, Harry!”
2:41 That's right! It goes in the square hole!
Only recently found this one out, just in time to be annoyed by it. The internet is a wonderful place
Can you tell me where the circle goes?
That's right, the square hole
I can still hear her distress
13:47 hey boys who want to make a titanium damascus sword
what a clickbait video
@@antoniotula5290 idk whats clickbait about it, he made the titanium damascus
@@antoniotula5290 There's a part 2, video id eukDccnTjJ8 (put it after the ?v=)
no one it wont hold an edge will it lol
@@theorangeheadedfellaDamascus sword would be the click bait I believe. Seeing how that’s the topic of the Orifmginal Comment 🤷♂️
when heating metal for color, I keep a bottle of co2 near by with an air blower. I can heat parts faster and "freeze" my desired color in place by shielding with the co2 when I see the color I want so that no further color change happens as it cools.
Next time, spray white paint inside the canister. The titanium dioxide from the white paint prevents steel from sticking to the canister. ~Kevin
I have also seen paper towel work.
uhm, what steel?
@@mrkikythe steel canister…
@@pugnut403 Sticking to itself?
After getting the plates so clean. Put in paint that is full of chemicals and will burn in the fire? Paper towel makes a lot more sense
3:00 "You can't say Diddy these days" LMAO
lol
That's not Diddys hole the shop is
The Diddler Likes Them Small
"1 Diddy hole" is crazy to be fair lol
They didn’t get enough oil.
3:15 can’t say Diddy nowadays 😂
Was gonna say, we all know what the Diddy hole is for.
When you’re urging for a purging, nothing quite lives up to a diddy hole 😂
Yep, it's just too tight tolerance hole to be acceptable
Electricity is the best way to color titanium, different voltages yield different colors. With a bench top power supply u can fine tune the exact color u want with the twist of a knob
while anodizing titanium is the best for getting specific colours, using heat allows for some nice gradients in the colouring, which is relatively hard using electricity.
not true with this kind of Tilam heat is the best way . Yes electricity is the best one one grade but not with multiple grades at the same time
In my experience you can get gradients by using low amperage. My grade 2 and 5 samples behave slightly differently under the same voltage and electrolyte concentration settings.
Like silver black green that type
@@hassanjaved1904 you can get some gold-purple, magenta, aqua-green, and light green with andozing that you can’t achieve with heat. You can easily Google some gradients.
For Flow rates, in medicine. 2-5LPM is low flow or Normal. 6-10 is a medium flow, and anything above 10LPM is High flow, but when high flow is indicated we usually run up to 15LPM. Just a thought and maybe help on your flow rate decisions.
@@fyrdoc that’s really interesting to know! Thank you!
@@AlecSteele Make a preheat chamber for the gas so the heat on the inside is more even. You could also try plating the titanium with some other metal so it doesn't oxidise without the inert gas, or do it in vacuum. Use just two pieces to test, you can fold them later.
@@TheOriginalEviltech I'd like to know how you suggest running a forge “In a vacuum”???
@@savage6394 Induction forging.
I was gonna say the vague language was a bit suspicious (since the point of patents is to give all the details in exchange for legal protection from competition for a certain period), but that makes it seem more legit.
If harry potter was a muggle
The boy who smelted.
The boy who smithed
Fr
8:41 has me on the floor
I read this at about 6 minutes into the video and it still got me with it! 🤣😂
Exactly as I would have done it 😂😂😂
I love the immediate facial change after he screams, realising that argon doesn't combust
Saying that heat is everything needed to „colour“ the titanium with oxides, couldn‘t you use the Paragon heat treating oven to aim for very specific patterns/ colours? This could result in some insane builds :o
If you want a very specific color, anodizing is the way to go.
The color comes from the thickness of the layer. Same basic notion as the color on soap films - thin film interference. Getting a specific color means aiming for a specific thickness of oxide layer. If you can control that oxide layer? You're set.
@@Relkond you can control it in anodization with applied voltage while current will set the rate of formation of the oxide layer
@@Relkond Some laser engravers do just this to engrave in different colors on the material with just the laser, I think.
Timascus is a big thing in the knife collecting community. It's used mostly for pocket clips, backspacers, and pivot collars. Some of the coolest Timascus clips I have are made by a company called Kunwu Knives. You can see examples on their website. People also make black Timascus, and Zircuti with zirconium.
1:26 The emergency butter
WW2 is seared into the genetics of some Brits.
He may, unironically, actually have emergency butter.
FYI, I believe they recommend tinted eye protection when sanding/grinding/etc. titanium, the sparks are actually bright enough to cause eye damage.
And haters will say "oh I miss the day of actual bonkers forging" -- look at these bonkers videos as of late!! Titatium Damascus? Yes please!
All my homies love Titatiom
@@Swagodactylluh
@@Swagodactyll lol, got me there
Titanium lava noodles flying across the workshop is as bonkers as it gets. Alec was pretty close to "inventing" the titanium flame thrower there (Not a flame thrower made of titanium, but a flame thrower with a titanium fueled flame).
hmmm boy o boy
Now make Tungsten Damascus
I highly doubt he'd be able to get it hot enough to even mold it
It would probably look cool af tho
That's only something styropyro could pull off.
Why what for???
9:21 You have an outline, 51%. Rest is you, aim for flow. Somewhere between boredom & overwhelmed. Awesome idea, sweet work hombre *subscribed* great job
3:05 Diddy hole omg yes lol😂😂
Diddy after locking all the doors at his party: 4:03
The Diddy hole full of baby oil
I literally did a mental double take when I heard that
okay "predator113377"
😂😂😂@@mrkiky
7:23 fully expected him to trip backwards and drop everything after talking about being organized
One thing to be aware of, regarding the ad read: while squarespace has a very nice, modern interface, you cannot back up your site. May i repeat, No Backups. When they go down, yoy go down, and the recovery? Rebuild your site somewhere else.
Back to the video. This is incredible!
1:13 Hank do not abbreviate commercially pure, Haaank
While I understand why context matters Especially in acronyms.
You Ment to say a titanium kukri 14:26
CP THAT STANDS FOR ...
And you meant to spell meant properly.
It would be cool if you did it the traditional way too. Getting a piece of grade 2, then grade 5(much thicker than what was used here) then hitting it to stretch it and folding it over and over in a forge and then hammering it out into a knife. Its actually easier than you'd think, you just need the tools(forge and large hammer or automatic hammer/press which you already have).
Patents often don't include exact details or variations used in production, to make it harder to replicate, so things like holes/positions shown could well be non-optimal
I believe that this was a method patent (often called a process patent.) The non-obvious method of producing something is what is covered, not the final product itself. The method patent would be infringed only if someone followed the same steps described in the patent to achieve the same result. As such, method patents do tend to describe something pretty close to the optimal known method, because if a method patent describes a suboptimal process and then someone else starts producing the same thing with another method that is more than trivially different from the patented steps, then the new producer could very well be found to not be infringing the method patent, and would be free to use the superior method without paying royalties.
I would be the cannister was not hooked up and flowing Ar or He while in the original patent holder's forge furnace. Purge and crimp the tubes before charging.
Also if you patent the exact process, the patent then covers ONLY that specification. That's why you leave it open enough that someone else can't just look at your expensive patent, change something miniscule and call it their version as it (in many cases) wouldn't be protected by the original patent anymore.
That's what I learnt from IPR-lawyer helping me protect a design - leave it just vague enough that it goes through the processing but afterwards if I'd decide to make any chances in the production items, the protected design would still apply. Like leaving out exact sizes, angles, materials etc.
@@Lanka0Kerayou can include quite a large range of variations in your patent claim to cover stuff like that. You can specify many optimal or non-optimal methods or variations within the method pretty easily. It’s why patents almost always read like word salad, they’re worded very specifically to cover alternatives.
I can guarantee the 2 hole method is sub optimal. the corners can trap oxygen.
1 feed hole with an intentional porous weld would always be better at expelling oxygen in every direction.
Slices of that block would make an AMAZING belt buckle.
Wow, its like unlocking a legendary blacksmith camo
This is surreal - I was literally telling my friend about timascus last night(I made his wedding ring) and now you upload this. So cool.
Can't wait to see you do more videos on this. Titanium is one of my favourite materials to work with, so I'm really keen to see what you'll do with it!
The best way to color titanium is actually with electricity. If you look into it, if you control the voltage you can dial the colors down to almost any color of the rainbow with incredible control and rpecision
I’ve done anodizing on grade 2 and 5 with high and low amperage set ups. Using a low amp set up will anodize more slowly and let you slowly (on the order of double-digit seconds) eye the gradient as you build it.
Is the electric colour different based on the alloy? once its damascus? especially with twists? I don't know hence why I ask...
@@robertjb001 in my testing with the same electrolyte and bank of batteries the grades behave slightly differently. More specific testing is warranted.
There's just something special that tickles the brain in a good way about a Ripped British man fabricating something with classical music in the background. Who also sounds like a mad professor at times.
I don't know anything about metallurgy, but I know that you CAN legally change your name to "Titanium Damascus", and that'd be pretty badass.
The way that thing squeezed out of the Jacket like a pierced water balloon in a SmarterEveryDay video was terrifying.
It was a eutectic reaction with the Ti and steel. Too hot! Ti on its own won't melt at 2100F, just oxidize severely, but if its in a lot of pressure against steel, or Ni, or Co, it will get to partially liquid. 1750-1850F is probably hot enough to forge weld the Ti pieces, and not get the eutectic with the steel cannister.
Aint seen one of your vids for a while glad you popped up and are still going strong
8:42 That also startled the crap out of me. I had no idea argon was inert; you learn something new everyday.
It's one of the noble gasses on the periodic table, for future reference to other gases that are also inert.
But I should clarify that any gas can be compressed within a sealed chamber, and that can still vent explosively.
You didn't know it was used for welding?
It's also not actually fully inert, it doesn't want to react with stuff but it will participate in some chemical reactions regardless of the fact that it really doesn't want to
@@mrkiky No, I'm not a welder; my experience leans more towards soldering. Specially circuit boards.
@@noodlelynoodle. But for some reference on how inert this is, the primary compound that proves this is Argon fluorohydride (HArF). This compound is only stable up to like 17 degrees K. Alternatively, the working principle of ArF lasers relies on the formation of a temporary Argon Fluor complex.
That said, that is an extremely high barrier to define inertness at. For all practical purposes, argon is inert, and it's far cheaper to get than the alternatives by virtue that you can get argon easily by the fractional distillation of air, making it an intrinsic byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen / oxygen.
@1:12 ty for clarifying what CP is 🤣🤣
First time I'm glad a youtuber has CP
Cerebral palsy is an awful disorder
Did someone say cheesy pizza?
Patent was held by alpha knife supply and they named it timascus. There is also black timascus where zirconium is used to give it some grey/shiny black bands, my favorite. People have been making timascus for a long time and selling it even with the patent. Chad nichols damascus makes one called mokuti, and their black timascus called zircuti
At 7:45 you've written ' Imrovement'
Haha, exactly what I was gonna say
I taught my boss the basics of metalworking and used your videos as a perfect reference for him. He has progressed in a year what took me 4 years+. Before I could even suggest it he was making his own alloys and teaching himself how to make simple crossguards. He needs a lot of work on refining and detail work, but it's amazing what he's already capable of. Guess that makes you a damn good teacher, lol. I remember the original titanium video, and look at you now, 6 years later and doing things I doubt even YOU thought you'd be able to.
The reason for the colours is less due to the presence of different oxides but mostly the rate at which the oxides are growing. Titanium oxides are nanometers thick and therefore interact with light. Other elements (such as aluminium) simply suppress the rate of titanium formation . With continued heating it is possible to cycle through these colours!
Every single Christmas as a small child I always asked for some CP grade 1 and 6AL4V titanium forge welded Damascus 👍
Dude… grade 1 CP is just wrong… let them grow up a bit first ;P
11:37 and that's where plumbus are made
You saw it too xD
Been binging a lot of Forged in Fire lately and the algorithm showed me your channel! Love it! You've got a new subscriber
1:10 just Alec talking about CP
And grade 5
I'm glad I'm not the only one to catch this
🥴🥴
Niobium foil as a solider between slice and closed canister!This way you are be able to weld titanium and steel togerher!
@@ИльяЗеленов-в4ж I’ve already got some on the way! Can’t wait to see what the possibilities are!!
That sounds expensive
2100F is way too hot. 1900F is all you need, maybe 1750F. You created a eutectic reaction with the steel at 2100F. And no power hammer - use a press with low strain rates at first.
And be careful with the Ti grinding swarf - now you're making something very flammable
No idea why the heck i was recommended this video, but having watched the TV show "Forged in Fire" in the past I was curious...
15 minutes later and I'm desperate for more! I'm so glad this was posted a month ago, as hopefully it means there is more videos on your channel for me to binge tonight 🤪
Titanium Damascus.... Only one person would be hard enough to create this... ALEC "DAMASCUS" STEELE!
Middle name Damascus.
Other than the people who patented it, they were hard enough. I'm not saying it isn't cool, but credit where credits due.
Chuck Norris would look at it and it would create itself
some finnish artesan blacksmith made one jewel of a knife by laminating steel with titanium just recently
Could you try nickel - titanium ? It have super-elasticity properties
Talk about a crazy alloy.
@@theoangelini6834 I want to try that, as well as some other interesting combos! Can’t wait to see what’s possible.
Pretty sure that's the plating the Spirit of Fire had in Halo Wars. In the lore it's really great at protecting against kinetic damage. Not sure what I'd be like in reality but would definitely like to see slo-mo testing of its properties
If you attach a tig gas lens(diffuser) or even just shove some fine steel wool into the end of your purgeline. It helps spread that gas much easier. So your inline hole wouldn't be much an issue
"C - P: that stands for commercially *PURE* !"
3:35 your cameraman is assuming the patent was written to match what they're actually doing. I looked at some of my employer's patents long ago and was surprised how little the description and drawings resembled the product. Perhaps the patentee in this case is less concerned with obfuscation and/or is more honest, but don't be too surprised if the patent ends up being barely useful.
Thanks, this video made me wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the intermetallic problem. I ran my little brainstorm past ChatGPT and get the impression it isn't new as I had hoped and maybe you already abandoned the idea. Basically make an alloy using similar but a little different metals. For example, Vanadium to go Titanium, and Manganese to go with Iron. The similarity of Vanadium to Ti means V might be substituted into the crystal lattice where Ti would normally go. But the difference would screw up the lattice. The lattice might get so messy it isn't really a lattice anymore so no crystals so no more intermetallic compound. Apparently something like that is something materials scientists are looking into to make High Entropy Alloys (HEA) which sometimes have useful properties. To make one, I think you would need an equal number of Ti and V atoms, and equal Mn, Fe. With luck it might make a better knife. But if that is too expensive to mess with, smaller amounts V and Mn might poison crystal formation enough to be helpful. Other metal neighbors of Ti and Fe might work, some are likely expensive though.
A different approach that might not work would be alloy TiFe with much larger and/or smaller atoms. Something like lithium might not so much disrupt the crystal as worm its way in between the TiFe atoms and wedge some distance between them. That might just pre-stress the material, but the extra distance might weaken the forces between TiFe so it is more ductile. A potential difficulty in trying it out is the 3rd metal also needs to be soluble in TiFe.
Imagine having a patent for beating metals together. Jeez, this world...
You could oversimplify any patent like that. Obviously there's more to it than just "beating metals together"
@@blaken2880 Of course. And obviously this is also way above the most ridiculous ones that exist or have existed.
its annoying but as seen in the video they expire and then the owner cant do jack.
@@phalanx3803the expiration is a key part of patents. Patents are a compromise, they encourage people to make new technologies by protecting exclusivity for a short time, but also put their process and methods out there publicly. When it expires, everybody can gain from their work. You can see this in the video; Alec used the patent as a guide. Much better than people and guilds jealously hoarding trade secrets.
If you ever come up with a product, you’ll be glad for patent laws.
1:10 "one acceptable grade is CP, and that stands for...
* *sweating profusely* *
"commercially pure"
man I was cooking dinner and heard that and I looked at the screen so confused
“HANK! DON’T ABBREVIATE COMMERCIALLY PURE, HANK!”
"HANK! DON'T ABBREVIATE CYBERPUNK, HANK!"
I was doin this stuff in a coal forge back in the day. Just enough for bolsters n stuff but i layered zirconium, 6al4v and nickel.
You can also use an argon purge.
Make the world's finest Damascus titanium katana.
11:48 dollar? i thought you brits use kilograms
He moved from his UK workshop
Please make a Dive Knife with this. I'm a Canadian clearance Diver, and we use titanium Dive knives because of they aren't magnetic, so when swimming up on a sea mine (for disposal) you won't set of any magnetic fuzing built into the mine. Just an idea.
UK clearance Divers do the same..... just saying.
Now make a knife out of titanium damascus
Would look cool, but titanium doesn't make a very good knife blade, no carbides and a bit too soft, doesn't hold a very good edge
13:41 the forbidden chocolate bar
I can't believe I just found your channel a couple of days ago. Really high-quality videos.
13:25 i think you may have made mithril
That would be titanium and silver
4:03 pimp alec be like
I used to watch this guy for hours making all sorts of things years ago amazing craftsmanship
1:51 "what the dog doing"
😐
😐
Sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar. May providence be with you.
🙂
I'm not a patent lawyer, but I presumed you were allowed to produce something based upon an active patent, so long as you don't engage in commercial activity by selling it or distributing it. For instance, you should, in theory, be able to make something that is fully patent protected, show the process to people (since it's freely available on the patent database anyway), but you cannot sell or distribute the thing you've created.
I could be totally wrong, and I guess there's a whole lot of nuance involved, so yeah. If there are any patent lawyers on here, I'd love to be corrected!
Thanks for the vid Alec. 👊
Half the time patent lawsuits aren’t about being right they’re about the patent holder having enough money to make it cheaper to settle than fight it.
Absolutely LOVE your enthusiasm, which is backed up with skill. So interesting.
The mere existence of that patent makes my blood boil.
In 1872 another pair of Englishmen, Woods and Clark, filed for patent of an acid and weather resistant iron alloy containing 30-35% chromium and 2% tungsten, effectively the first ever patent on what would now be considered a stainless steel.
Patents on stuff like this protects the inventors so they can get paid for there discovery I guess?
More music like this! 01:44 ->
Great content rises to new great heights
at my job i regularly work with solid titanium parts and screw, a lot of jobs require that when changing something out you throw the screws out and use brand new ones, every screw is around £115-120 or $150, and one parts ive seen break is a solid 5kg chunk of titanium, i dont even know how much that might be worth, since it broke i took it home and now its sitting on my fireplace
diddy hole lmfao
Hello friends!
Hello TreeCutterDoug!
@@marylebone9357🤙🤙🤙
helo
I'm feeling so old. I remember when Mr Steele was still a young'n whackin' around England on pure grit and passion. Now he's all grown up, still living his dream.
Patents don’t stop you from making something, you just can’t make it and sell it
He is making $$ via TH-cam
The patent is to keep others from profiting off the idea without permission.
a blacksmith telling me sum bout making websites lol think ill pass on that one 08:27 if yall wanna skip
A blacksmith with a SUPER successful SOCIAL MEDIA BUSINESS!
@@maxpowers5310 as if that requires a website lol. honestly at this point i just assume everything advertised on yt is a scam. and its usually true sadly
I will have to make some custom alloy powders too for my 3D printing system that converts oxides into raw metal with out added gas fluxing like the argon (entirely energy flux based system that not only purges and protects the material but actually extracts it (ie its not pushing by displacement, but rather attracting in order to leave even a pure vacuum in the specified region)
I remember this, how amazing to click over to your channel today to find this project ❤
Man, I would love a pocket folder with a Titanium Damascus blade! 🤘😄
Me every time I clean my room... 7:18:
Look at this new toy we've got... The toy is organization 🙂↔️😏
5:40 I’m British too but that “STOP THAT” felt as if the entire nation was backing you up
I would think any flow of inert gas would be sufficient to keep air/oxygen displaced or purged out. Love watching your videos!
3:43 so that’s why purge times exist. at least for purge pipe welding there are set times that you need to let the pipe purge for to make sure %100 of the oxygen is out. even tho this is a small box it’s got lots of nooks and crannies for air to be in so like 5-10 minutes might be needed i’m no expert on this stuff still in school for a lot of it but that’s at least what i know about purging and that’s why we in the welding industry only need one hole and i can’t imagine it would be to much different from this
It's my first time visiting your country, I'm in Manchester, it's very beautiful 👋🇵🇦 Saludos!
Damn I don't know him but I love it Soo much the way he says ,,The patent! Has bloody Expired!" 😂 0:41
patents: its not about the result or end product, its about the process or mecanics described or delevoped to archive the results. For example, que "light bulb" is a concept, like "titanium damascus steel", the way people maked the light bulb were many, size, process, materials, etc. So, dont be afraid in the future. (Unless you are following a patent to the letter to recreate something that in one way or another makes you money, aka someones else process)
6:41 The term dipstick comes from the dipstick on your oil if I remember right or the dipstick they used on a tractor back in the day
Watching you work is like watching David Tennant playing Doctor Who while forging this stuff. 😂
And yes, David Tennant is my favorite doctor. 😁
Well done lad, nice bit of tig welding on that can 👍
Incredible forging!👍🔨⚒️