[T3] Tire failure?

Jim Adney jadney at vwtype3.org
Thu Jan 20 07:13:10 PST 2011


On 20 Jan 2011 at 12:57, Dave Hall wrote:

> That does surprise me....
> ... Unless by 'burns equally well in pure O and pure N' means it doesn't
> burn at all!

;-)

It actually "burns" quite well in both atmospheres, making it one of the 
hardest fires to put out. Of course, like Mg and Al, it's hard to get started 
with large pieces, but filings and machining chips can go pretty spectacularly.

> A recent TV programme on the Gugenheim Museum in Spain, explained how they
> heated the titanium cladding to a certain temperature to get the right
> colour of oxide on the surface - a sort of golden colour.  Since it
> apparently keeps its colour, I presume it does not react further to
> atmosphereic Oxygen or Nitrogen.  Obviously that just means the Titanium
> oxide layer is non-reactive (as with Aluminium).

I often see jewelry done this way. It makes nice earrings because Titanium is 
quite light. Often the people don't actually know which metal they've got 
there. (I've heard people call it Tantalum, which is a completely different 
animal.) The color is just an intereference pattern determined by the thickness 
of the oxide/nitride layer. You can get any color you want by heating it longer 
or shorter. Red, blue & gold are commonly seen. The gold coating we see on 
modern cutting tools is Titanium nitride. That's probably not an interference 
pattern, but the actual color of the material, but I'm not sure about that.


-- 
Jim Adney
jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, WI USA




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