bjohnson Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 I'm planning on making up some captive wheel spacers for my track bike over the winter, was planning on picking up a lump of titanium and turning them on my dads lathe. Sounds simple enough but i know titanium is not the easiest to machine. Any tips or experience? Is an alternative (and hence easier to machine) material a better solution; these are after all, only very small parts. cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superdunc Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 I'm planning on making up some captive wheel spacers for my track bike over the winter, was planning on picking up a lump of titanium and turning them on my dads lathe. Sounds simple enough but i know titanium is not the easiest to machine. Any tips or experience? Is an alternative (and hence easier to machine) material a better solution; these are after all, only very small parts. cheers Aluminium would be better suited to this application, lighter, and easier to machine. Get them hard anodised if what them to look Gucci. Titanium needs good sharp tooling and lots of coolant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacemonkey Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 I'm planning on making up some captive wheel spacers for my track bike over the winter, was planning on picking up a lump of titanium and turning them on my dads lathe. Sounds simple enough but i know titanium is not the easiest to machine. Any tips or experience? Is an alternative (and hence easier to machine) material a better solution; these are after all, only very small parts. cheers Relatively low spindle speeds, constant feed, carbide tooling, lots of coolant as already suggested. (You can set fire to the swarf.) It's definitely of dubious value over aluminium. I think from aluminium they'd be lighter, cheaper and easier to deal with. After anodising they'd be unlikely to corrode as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kanerdog1x1 Posted November 13, 2011 Report Share Posted November 13, 2011 what the other said. but if you really must, 'low speed and high feed'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benji Posted November 17, 2011 Report Share Posted November 17, 2011 As above has said it's not the easiest, definitely agree with using aluminium. The other issue is drilling the stuff, that can get into all sorts of issues were it will gall onto the drill, then it's just poor surface finish and a knackered drill bit. Ideally you want to drill the right size first time, so you will need a lathe with big capacity to achieve what you want, and lots and lots of coolant. I can definitely confirm that titanium swarf is flamable, set the swarf on my lathe bed on fire earlier this year, just making some titanium fairing spacers, one spark combined with hot swarf and up it went. No damage, just more the ooh didn't know it would do that. If you want to read more about it The Racing Motorcycle Volume 2 covers machining titanium in reasonable detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gixerboy1 Posted November 28, 2011 Report Share Posted November 28, 2011 Do not let the tool dwell on the job at all either. You can take a good depth of cut with low spindle speed and a high feed per revolution. If drilling it, grind the drill with a shallow point as you would for other hard materials and ideally use tungsten carbide rather then HSS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gixerboy1 Posted November 28, 2011 Report Share Posted November 28, 2011 But as everyone else has suggested, use aluminium and hard anodise it, I think the dark grey that they come out looks better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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