Titanium Lockpicks

[Hak]

As for Platinum? how many Rap records you pumpin' playa? Cuz that material is more costly than gold!

Lol, i dont like rap music.
btw... i like your sig

[S3rratedSp00L]

Hmmm someone posted a link to www.emachineshop.com a while back. I have never used them, but I think they do titanium! They lasercut, waterjet, abrasive waterjet, mill, drill, etc.. You download their little CAD program, design your part, order it and they make it for you. They do stainless, HS steel, Spring steel, titanium (I believe), and maybe they could do platinum.. Some materials cost more than others, of course..

I like stainless for tension tools and picks. It has it's advantages. I cold bend, and it seems to work well for my wrenches. Titanium would be interesting.. I have heard that titanium can be brittle, but that is probably if subjected to improper treatment just like with any other metal. Anyone know anything specific about the brittleness of titanium?

[hzatorsk]

I will not claim to be an expert in titanium... But I am in contact with it everyday. (my wedding band is titanium ).

From what I read about the metal. It is susceptable to becoming brittle if not worked correctly because of its desire to react with certain gasses when heated. That tells me you need an inert gas when working heated titanium. In metalworking hardness and brittleness generally tend to go together.

Cold working (grinding) titanium is dangerous by the untrained. The dust is reactive (explosive) and there are plenty of OSHA/CDC issues regarding proper handling.

However, Titanium is lighter... (much lighter) than steel.. .so, a previous comment that it had increase weight appears incorrect.

http://www.efunda.com/materials/alloys/ ... tanium.cfm
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/00 ... -0005.html

[Romstar]

Yes, titanium dust is reactive, but nowhere near so much as you might believe.

Like the idiot I am, I was smoking the last time I was grinding the stuff.

Given the small pieces we are using, and the type of work being done, I don't think that it is all that dangerous. Many knife makers use titanium either for blades, or handles. Some even make complete knives.

So far my greatest difficult is the need for different abrasives. Titanium is murder on standard cutters and grinding mediums.

It does make beautiful parts though, and it isn't really all that expensive. I pay about $30.00 Canadian for a 12" X 24" sheet of .030" sheet. The problem with that size is that I have to thin the pick blades down to about .022" by hand. That's time consuming as well.

Romstar

[zeke79]

Hey Romstar, if you get a price figured out for a standard set of titanium picks I would be interested in purchasing some. Drop me a pm if you are interested and we can discuss it in further detail.

[thertel]

Romstar I meant to ask you this before i placed my order but what thickness do you recommend for picks i actually was unable to get teh .5mm i wanted so i order .035" cus i was antsy to order so i could get it in a good amount of time.

As for the reactive dust you have to reach a pretty heavy saturation of dust......to the point where i've machine for over an hour while people were welding in the same room and we are all still alive, I do wear a respirator simply cus I'm paranoid after i worked with mesquite wood one time and had to go to the hospital cus my throat swelled up and i broke out in hives. happen with a tungsten blank i was making into a pen as well so I am just afraid.

What I'm thinking about doing is making one of those interchangable handles like southord makes for their picks.

What I also would like to do in engrave my signature on the handle of the picks but that is proving to be harder then it sounds mainly cus I did a test of my signature on a chunk of aluminum today and i have one ugly lookin signature.

Still looking for templates, nickz ftp never works for me so i've been making pdf's our of my southord set and making the falle sets into pdfs as well. I wondered why everyone was using gifs and jpegs when pdf's are much more reliable when it comes to printing.

well off I go to scan some more.

Thomas

[zeke79]

sorry my ftp has been down quite a bit lately. I think things are sorted out at this point if you want to try again. the address is ftp://lockpicking:101@nickz.homeftp.net . Let me know if you cannot access it as I have switched over to norton internet security and am having some trouble getting the bugs worked out of my network so please bear with me.

[Romstar]

Zeke, and anyone else who is interested......

As soon as I get something regular going with the titanium, I will work out the price and let everyone know. That's about all I can say at the moment.

Thertel, the thickness of teh picks should be anywhere from .018" to .022" for slimline, and .025 to .030 for regular. I don't really recomend too many at teh .030 thickness, because those are only really usable on older, larger locks.

Stay around the .022 - .025 range, and those will be fine.

Romstar

[thertel]

thanks for hte thickness advice I think I will keep then relatively thin then.

Thanks

[frollard]

someone mentioned platinum....

one of the rarest, several hundered dollars an OUNCE - twice as expensive as gold...

and to top it off, platinum is USELESS! - its just shiny and rare.

maybe to plate the picks - gold plate on my picks would be super cool methinks.

[Romstar]

someone mentioned platinum....

one of the rarest, several hundered dollars an OUNCE - twice as expensive as gold...

and to top it off, platinum is USELESS! - its just shiny and rare.

maybe to plate the picks - gold plate on my picks would be super cool methinks.

I was thinking the very same thing about platinum. To top it off, it is often mistaken for other metals.

The problem with gold plate is that it wears poorly. You would discover after a few weeks of serious picking that you were wearing holes in the plating. That looks terrible.

If I DO gold handles, it will be 12k or 14k gold sheet.

Romstar