> Titanium is in theory much better, but is incredibly difficult to work with(requiring forgings in most cases, and being almost unmachinable), and very expensive as the bond it forms with oxygen is so strong the normal fluorine based processing used with Aluminum won’t work. Yeah, you read that right.
I have a spoon bought from Amazon which they claim is made from titanium. [Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird)
claims 31 aircraft made from titanium and first flew in 1964. Given they got it off the ground in 1964 and can make a spoon in 2022 what kind of machining problems are left to solve for titanium? Usually it's the other way round like make s spoon from wood for 5,000 years then make an aircraft in 1905.
If it is the same type of spoon I’m thinking of - they are indeed titanium! Forged titanium, at least the version I got.
Because it’s a small part with no significant critical tolerances, it’s also only $10-$20 for a few grams of metal, and only 5x as expensive as a typical spoon.
The equipment required to forge it is also doable in a garage due to the small surface area the forging is happening over (force required goes up as the surface area goes up - which is squared for the dimensions, so very rapidly gets very large).
It isn’t truly impossible to machine titanium (generally - like most metals the alloy, heat treatment, etc. matter a lot), it’s just so much harder and requires so much more expensive tooling that it’s hard to justify economically except in niche applications.
It’s improving though with better insert based machining tools and hardier insert material.
I’ve heard of some impressive titanium 3D printing using sintering techniques that also have a lot of promise.
Many of the alloys (many more than say aluminum) are nearly impossible due to material characteristics and do require EDM to machine.
Decades ago I happened to get a tour of the Edwards Air Force Base SR71 hangar (near the end of their effective time in service) and the machinists there were very proud of their EDM work for this reason.
> Titanium is in theory much better, but is incredibly difficult to work with(requiring forgings in most cases, and being almost unmachinable), and very expensive as the bond it forms with oxygen is so strong the normal fluorine based processing used with Aluminum won’t work. Yeah, you read that right.
I have a spoon bought from Amazon which they claim is made from titanium. [Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird) claims 31 aircraft made from titanium and first flew in 1964. Given they got it off the ground in 1964 and can make a spoon in 2022 what kind of machining problems are left to solve for titanium? Usually it's the other way round like make s spoon from wood for 5,000 years then make an aircraft in 1905.