Thoughts on a Titanium grill.....

[kevbooth]

Came into a good bunch of 3/16" Titanium round stock, for FREE. Got nothing better to with it, so I thought I might make a grill out of it.

Any thoughts? Good, bad or otherwise??

I figure it will handle the heat well, disperse heat well, and generally cleanup nice. Should be plenty durable...????

Or would I be further ahead to sell it to the scrap man and buy some stainless and just go the old fashioned route?

Later,
Kev

[ihctractor]

Titanium is a bit of booger to work with and grossly expensive. I'd sell it to somebody that has a use for it. The money you get could probably build 2 or 3 stainless grills.

[Jigantor]

It is basically aluminium so I would not use it.
When it comes to food you can not beat stainless.
I know doctors use titanium to heal bones I have both screws and plates in me. I just do not want to eat off it.

Ji

[Burnt hands]

You could make sculptures which wouldn't rust.

The big sphere weighs about 80 lbs so it is worth a bit even as scrap.

Saturn measures about 16" high.

[Jigantor]

Nice work

Ji

[sparky666]

Just be carefull

[sparky666]

I have heard that titanium can be a litle radioactive

[Fred S2]

Have you ever seen titanium exposed to heat and oxygen/nitrogen at the same time? Things are going to crust up a good bit

[Dmaxer]

Sounds interesting, but I'd agree with the suggestion to sell the rods and buy SS. Pure Ti loses strength when heated above 430 °C (806 °F) (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium ) . You didn't say whether the rods are pure or an alloy. Some alloys are much stronger at high temps. How hot do you think the grill will get during use/abuse? I've see grease fires in SS barbeques get the grill glowing red.

It is not dangerous to cook on as Ti atoms generally do not stay in the human body. Actually, some expensive backpackers cookware is made from Ti. But how would you create the oxygen and nitrogen free environment in which to weld up your grill? I think you'd need to use an argon flooded sealed chamber with neoprene glove access and that is big enough to contain the completed grill. Anything less will result in embrittled weld joints that will likely fail during the heat/cool cycles to which the grill will later be exposed. Best of luck with your project.

[kevbooth]

I have a purge tent and all the nessecary stuff to fabricate the grill. I work for a medical implant manufacturer, hence the scrap Ti. It's all alloy, but I'm not sure which one, probably 6-4 eli, I don't know.

In hind sight your probably all right. I think I'll just roll with a SS version. Just had the extra laying around and thought I could maybe put it to use for something cool.

Later,
Kev