How To Tell If It's Really Titanium 280
With the growing popularity of titanium, some disreputable merchandisers are passing off other materials as the more expensive metal. Popular Science looks at a surefire way to prove what that credit card/crowbar/ring is really made of. "Hold any genuine titanium metal object to a grinding wheel (even a little grindstone on a Dremel tool will do), and it gives off a shower of brilliant white sparks unlike any softer common metal. The sparks are tiny pieces of cut titanium--the friction of the grinder heats them till they burn white-hot. Hold a grindstone to the shackle of a "titanium" padlock from Master Lock, however, and you'll instead see the telltale fine, long, yellow sparks of high-carbon steel."
is there a better way? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't try this away from home (Score:3, Insightful)
This is very much a point where Hanlon's Razor can be applied.
Re:Mods smoke crack (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Titanium: not recommended for rings (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Interesting! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why titanium anyway? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. Several I can think of. Here's a couple that I have personal experience with.
Bicycles. A Ti bike is a noticeably different ride than other materials.
Eyeglasses. Steel contains quite a bit of nickel. Many people are allergic to it, and get a rash when in constant contact with it. So, in eyeglasses, you have a choice between regular steel, Ti, or plastic. Guess which wins.
Re:a magnet? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:a magnet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing BS (Score:2, Insightful)
They're capitalizing on the idea that titanium is high-tech and expensive. Which it is. But that's relative steel
and aluminum. Aluminum costs about $2,500 a (metric) ton. Titanium, on the order of $50,000/ton. Contrast that to gold, which'll cost you around $25,000,000/ton.
So titanium jewellery? I'll pass. In fact, I read an article where a metals wholesaler said that he didn't even bother to charge for the small amounts used for designer jewellery.
It's all just a marketing stunt. Titanium isn't actually better than the metal it's replacing a lot of the time. To take an example, I saw an expensive titanium camp stove (as opposed to aluminium). The stupidity of that, besides being heavier, is that titanium sucks as a heat conductor, in particular in comparison to aluminum (what's your CPU heatsink made of?)
Instead of asking themselves "Is it really titanium?", people need to ask "Why does it need to be titanium?"
Archimedes principle? (Score:3, Insightful)
It worked for gold, why not for titanium?
Re:a magnet? (Score:1, Insightful)
The reply wasn't nitpicking, since, as per other entries in the thread there are many rather common steel variants that are not particularly magnetic. You might have a point if it were just exotic alloys that normal persons indeed need not to know about, but as it is, you're just spouting shit.
Re:Titanium: not recommended for rings (Score:4, Insightful)
An abysmal movie (The Abyss) that actually got some physics right but certainly not that bit.