ET: Engine (Twin) ET48 Mag/ATD Pinion

royrobertson

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VOC Member
We old ex-Toolmakers just love a challenge and machining Titanium is certainly it.
Just a word of Warning about Titanium. It's worth checking grades very carefully and if you can find it there is a Titanium Industries pamphlet about the Do's and Dont's of this material. It's a mine of information. Unfortunately I loaned mine to someone ( I can't remember who) and never got it back. I think it is a poor bearing material likened to a metal with a handful of grit in it. So I'm not sure about you lovely spindles. As timetraveller (Thanks for the kind words) mentioned my first ventures were hand cut from some wire-cut offcut blocks I was given and then turned into Valve spring retainers. For the crankcase I purchased the material from Pete Lidster who used to be passenger in Martin Quirks Vincent sidecar. More recently Terry Martin gave me some very useful lengths that were surplus at his work.
Cheers Roy
 

oexing

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VOC Member
As can be expected all parts home made from material I found in Ebay or Aliexpress. You want grade 5 titanium for max. strength so have a search in these platforms. I got rods in oversize for spindles for compensating not so straight rods to clean up when turning to exact sizes. I have IGUS plastic bushes in the girder, maintenance free I hope. Titanium is not the very best in combination with these bushes, stainless steel better. But in all likelyhood I will never wear them out so some weight saving is worthwhile for me - and to impress people , hihi . Machining titanium is not too tricky, use cutting oil and no blunt cutters tolerated. A bit like a mix of ht alu and stainless so nice sharp tools a must.
All threads and nuts in photo are metric fine as I made Brampton links in alu with left hand taps M 12x1 and M 14x1 on one side and other side right hand like standard but metric. But be careful with titanium or stainless, lubrication on threads is critical for avoiding seizures.

Vic
Aliexpress titan

Ebay sample

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royrobertson

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VOC Member
Well done Vic. One thing I must mention is the Titanium swarf. It can be a Serious FIRE risk and once alight cannot be put out with Water. The way recommended is smother it with sand. Its was all in the pamphlet.
Also it is a very poor transmitter of heat so one end can be very hot but just a couple of inches away cold.
Finally when using HS taps where possible wind them right though without backing off. Use split dies and open up before removing. Any rubbing action will take the edge off any tooling then squeaking and total seizure can occur. Once a tap has seized there is no hope for the tap or the work. Bitter Experience here. The above also applies assembly of Nuts and Bolts. Use an anti-seize paste.
Don't be put off by the above as Success is Wonderful. See what Vic Has Made.
Cheers Roy
 

Robert Watson

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VOC Member
Gotta love this Club. A question about atd gears generates 22 responses so far, 8 of which are relevant to the question and 16 of which are not! Of course this is all just fine as the very first answer was all that was required! You do learn things tho'. I have some magnesium off cuts and it is always fun to put one in the campfire and do shadow puppets on the trees a 100 feet away, but I did not know that titanium can burn as well!
 

Michael Vane-Hunt

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VOC Member
Isn't Danny's special about half titanium? I thought I heard it said he made the UFM from titanium. He may have a bunch of swarf we can toss on your next campfire section party Robert.
 

oexing

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VOC Member
Thanks for the warning, didn´t know about fire risk with titanium, magnesium certainly. As for thread cutting I did all Brampton bolts with lathe tool, no dies. No desire for risking anything. But yes, that seems to be quite similar to tin bronce (phosphor bronce?) or tough stainless steel when tapping or drilling that stuff. You get only sharp tools for this job and use real cutting lube, nevertheless expect cutting edges to get blunt in short time so need to grind them soon enough. The fancy nuts in my photos are stainless steel so I got around thread tapping titanium. But another aspect in this case: It is never a good idea to have same materials in a threaded joint unless you have antiseize applied. A MoS2 paste is great for this, copper paste or some such acceptable too.
Some time ago I came upon thread rolling tech after having to change spoke lengths due to ordering wrong sizes from Uk - my bad. So another idea coming from this was to look for more thread rolling gear as I like to have stainless in most places - which is no fun when having tough types of ss for die cutting. That rolling procedure is great once you have found the exact diameter of rod and the rolling head set to correct pitch diameter by tests. Well, some raised heart beat when rolling on the lathe initially but just a second or two and done. So that was continued into titanium thread rolling, feeling a bit different to ss but allright, so I did all engine case through bolts in titanium - no nerves for die cutting again . These rolling heads are absurdly expensive new, only chance to find reasonably lower priced used heads in Ebay by a lot of luck.
Sorry for sort of thread drift but I believe in Graham´s super forum the forum search engine may find anything about titanium if someone later remembered reading about this while the opener was about mag pinion. But even with no luck in search we appear extremely quick in any replies to forum postings so not much damage done I´d think. Had a look into CE forum yesterday when I did membership renewal - well, it will take a few months of refinements to be worthwhile to look into. Oh, another drift . . . .

Vic

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