Titanium welding

staggs65

staggs65

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Doing a little Titanium job right now and just thought I'd share. If you ever thought titanium sled parts were expensive here's some figures for you....7 lengths of 6 inch pipe and a couple dozen fittings came out to just under $47,000.

 

Dang

And I was thinking of redoing my whole sled in it too. :)

So what exactly are you working on?
 
We whittle slice lips and a couple other larger parts out of titanium here and there... one of the machinists screwed a titanium slice lip up not too long ago. See "flushing a quarter million dollars down the toilet". They literally threw it in the garbage.

We're also going to be starting to flame spray a titanium coating on some of our "economy" rotors. Combisorters and the like. I guess its going to be cheaper than the stellite 6 we have always used.

What mill if you dont mind my asking?
 
Just for perspective, for those that don't know (like me), how long were each of the 7 pipes you spoke about? That's crazy how much $$ Ti is...
 
Do you Tig weld those? If you do are they welded in a chamber or do you use some other method to get welds that clean? Do you use Helium for the shielding gas?
 
JDViper said:
As a former fabricator (former not by choice) thats a nice weld man. I can ALWAYS appreciate a good bead. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks JD, I've been a pipewelder for 20 years now and when I went through my apprenticeship we were taught to take pride in our work. I've seen many hack jobs over the years but those companies usually don't last long. I know you're in a chair but if it's something you enjoyed and something you still want to do, it seems a fab shop would be able to accommodate you. Good skilled craftsmen are hard to come by.
 
dmsrx700 said:
Do you Tig weld those? If you do are they welded in a chamber or do you use some other method to get welds that clean? Do you use Helium for the shielding gas?
Click to expand...

Yes, Tig welded. I use a miller Dynasty in the shop and a Miller synchrowave in the field. DC negative, High freq start, start n stop by remote. You need to run hot and fast to not put too much heat into the material. On this particular pipe i'm running 130 amps on the root and 120 on the cover. there's so much more, if you want more particulars pm me.

As I posted before liquid argon "doer". The only reason for the liquid tank is because of the volume of gas used for proper shielding wouldn't be feasible with standard gas tanks. I run 30cfh on my torch, 60 on my trailing cup, 60 on my internal purge, and there are 2 of us welding.

Color is a bad thing with titanium welding. there are color scales out there if you want to know but basically: a clear shiny chrome-like finish is ideally what you want. A gold hue is the next stage and generally accepted depending on application. purple/blue is next, some spots of it are generally accepted but not what you want. Milky white is next, cut it apart it's going to break sooner or later. Yellow ash, throw it out, you killed it.

Here's some pics of the trailing cup rig and the internal purge. The brass diffuser material is a must on titanium. It's all about gas coverage for a clean weld. I only weld as far as my trailer can cover at a time and keep the trailer right on top of the weld for 30-60 seconds depending on how hot the material is after you break the arc.





 
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staggs65 said:
Thanks JD, I've been a pipewelder for 20 years now and when I went through my apprenticeship we were taught to take pride in our work. I've seen many hack jobs over the years but those companies usually don't last long. I know you're in a chair but if it's something you enjoyed and something you still want to do, it seems a fab shop would be able to accommodate you. Good skilled craftsmen are hard to come by.
Click to expand...
It has crosses my mind a lot lately....
 
I was wondering if you had filled the bore with shielding gas.... I use a back up gas system at times at work if I cannot get access to the back of the weld.

Then I get asked "how did you weld that in there"? As the penetration and weld look alike on both sides.
 
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