I was thinking about this last night. I understand that when heated to the correct temperature titanium will begin to show color. Under moderate heat (torch) titanium should be able to easily pick up oxygen from the air, causing a dielectric barrier to bond together and build a thicker oxide layer. Ultimately, the torch should be able to create the first-order colors (bronze, blues, maybe yellow) with a few minutes of work. At least, the above is how I understand the process My question is simply this, is the STi titanium ball full titanium? If so, what's the coating on the outside, just roughed up? Ive searched around and did not find a similar topic, plus I thought it might be an interesting DIY for a few of us... Cliff notes: Move from this To this alex
I did some titanium stuff like that when I worked at the bike shop. The problem is its really hard to get it to look right, you end up getting spots. You also need to have it ultra clean when you do it or it will screw it up.
Well my thoughts were that since you are simply putting an oxidized layer on the ball it should be able to sand right off if you muck it up.
It really looks like the proper approach would be to blow from the top down and let the heat naturally spill over the curvature of the sphere
Is the ball coated with something or just textured or should I just take a torch to it and see what happens. How do you suggest I clean it?
I think you will need a large flame that can enclose at least half of the bal to get a even color gradientl. Not sure about the coating, if it's paint you can easie use a paintstripper and it should come right off. If not a sandblast at Miller's should take off anything that's on the surface. Make sure to wear gloves so any oils and contaminants, I suggest a wash in simple green, rinse, clean with alcohol. I awlays thought the STi knob is not real titanium but stainless steel, looks like you'll prove of disprove my theory
If propane wont get hot enough for the discoloration you want, you could always try mapp gas instead.
Ive done a couple exhaust tips like that Propane may not be hot enough and the distribution if not even will look bad. Use MAPP gas instead and make sure the part is extrememly clean otherwise it changes differently. Ive not done it on Titanium so im not sure how hot
Sorry about not catching up on this, I didnt get a chance to post this earlier due to the festivities on friday and saturday. Alright, unfortunately my oxyacetylene torch ran out of oxygen, so I switched to propane which worked quite well for my experiment. Sorry for the shiesty photos, Ill take more when theres better light outside. I am not much of a photographer when it comes to using the flash The black stuff on the ball (which sorta looks cool) is some melted plastic from the inside. Yes, you will end up melting the plastic threading inside assuming you are using a hot enough flame The results speak for themselves, with some practice you can make your ball look pretty cool. The only thing left would be to have a brass insert (hint hint lathewerks) made to put back inside the ball so that you can thread it back onto the stock arm. I am not sure why someone said it couldnt be done. My guess is their ended up just charring their ball instead of coloring it (this happens if you're flame isnt hot enough). In my case, this happened when my torch ran out of oxygen. Now that all of the plastic inside has melted, I will probably sand off the finish and try it again. A light coat of alcohol + paper towel will clean it up. I wetsanded the ball with 1000 grit paper to remove the rest of the oxidization. All and all, I am quite pleased with how this is turning out I will write up a DIY when I redo it (tomorrow maybe) and perhaps even try to make a quick video showing the process. It takes a few minutes to heat the ball up but once you do you will almost immediately see it go through the different color stages. Oh, and one more thing. If you do intend to do this on your own, for the sake of god please remove the sticker (if you applied one) on the collar. If you do not, you may see some flames ak
Alright well turns out I had a few minutes while I was sipping on the morning coffee to try this again. I changed the strategy a bit as well. I used the stock jack (on its side) to prop up the shift knob to an optimal height as well as to allow me to apply even heat on all sides. It definately looks 100x cleaner I was able to get considerably more color out of the metal this time. Oh, and in case you were curious, the black ring around the collar is the completely toasted sticker :lol: I will be working on removing that soon. Above photo cropped from this We can see how the colors slightly adjust in different light conditions Above photo cropped from this Consider it an improvement? Cheers, ak
Yeah that does cool good...now how do we screw it back on to the shifter...any word on the brass insert?
I would imagine you could re-insert your plastic insert (if you removed it). I will talk with Chris @ LatheWerks this afternoon about having an insert made for me.
nice! Can you talk to him about an insert for mine too? I think it's stripped from taking it on and off with the imaginary shift boot
Looks good... I told you to remove that sticker earlier in this thread Alex!!! looks like that'll be a pain to remove...
Nice results! Can this be attempted with a STI "piston" shift knob? Those are supposed to be titanium also, right?