Titanium alloy stick
 

Well, I broke down and bought a strip of titanium alloy sheet off ebay for $10.00 plus shipping. It was about 16" long by 1 1/4" wide, and a little less than 1/16" thick. My plan was to cold form it into a piece of angle using a vice.

I ordered the piece longer than I needed (I only need 12" or so) so I had a little extra piece to experiment with.

Marking the extra piece down the middle with a pencil, I then placed it in the 5" vice, and took a hammer to it.

It's insane how strong, and resilient this stuff is. :twisted: You have to beat the c r a p out of it to get it to bend...and it's LESS than 1/16" thick.

Just like aluminum, it WILL split. At about 80 degrees the piece I was working on split. So for the actual chassis piece I only bent it about 60 degrees into a V-shape. Maybe if it was worked hot it would do even better.:?:

This titanium alloy twists just like aluminum, but bounces back with much more authority than aluminum.

I plan on replacing my aluminum channel stick with this titanium. I'll post some pictures sometime in the next couple of days.

You have to bend Ti "with the grain" then it will not break

That right there may cuase some problems. You don't want it react faster then you can. It may work great, but would take even longer to to drive then you normal Torsion chassis...Also I have no clue how long the break in period would be with titanium?

And I am sure the piece he go for so cheap is scrap and only able to bend across the short side.

Also, you will need more than 12" to make a 12.5" wheelbase clod.

I'd personally try and make it work flat over taking a hammer to make a crappy bend.

EDIT: There is no breakin for flex like aluminum... it's going to stay the same until it fails.

Then this is going to be interesting on oh it works. If it springs back faster it may or may not be a good choice. But only time and testing will find that out.

This is the guy I got my titanium alloy from...he sells alot of this stuff on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/TITANIUM-SHEET-6...QQcmdZViewItem

I played around with some of the leftover pieces tonight. They bend much easier heated with a butane torch. Just throw em in the vice, heat em up, hammer em. You can get better than 90 degree bends with no cracking at all.

I definitely want to try a piece that is even thinner....maybe around .05" or less.

As far as using it flat....might work....I'll try it.

For anyone interested, I suggest getting a piece and playing around with it.....you will be amazed how resilient this stuff is......I put one end of the strip in a vice, put on a thick leather glove, grabbed it like a handlebar, and twisted it with all the strength I had.......it twisted about 120 degrees.........when I let it go, it wasn't bent at all, it went right back to where it was......this stuff is very strong.

The "Ti-Stick""thumbsup" ......Now I need to come up with a good pot-leaf logo and start sellin' em.

For 3 seconds till your back end meets your front end. The reason angle works is because you have two planes that are purpendicular, the resist bending because oviously its hard to bend a peice of flat bar the "hard way" and a peice of angle is essentialy two peices of flat bar joined across one seem. So one plane resist bending up and down and one plane resists bending side to side. But they allow twist because it is across a 3rd plane that both peices sepperatly would not inhibit. So if you take away one of the two planes its gonna fold up pretty quick, TI or not.

Flat was suggested by Unholy......angle is obviously stronger.

Actually, my next piece will be a tube cut down the middle....one half mounted open side up.......it'll resist folding, but twist nicely.....and I'll get two sticks out of one tube"thumbsup"

It really depends on the strength of the piece. For instance my stampede (though it doesn't use the chassis for suspension flex) is nothing more than a milled out flat piece of aluminum. A lot of r/c cars use nothing more than a flat chassis... though some have an upper brace to provide more rigidity to keep from flexing.

I guess what I was getting at is if it were a single plane that was thin enough to flex, it would fold up.

In case anyone is confused on why one would even want to use titanium for a stick....

1. Titanium can twist and bend all over the place and not weaken

2. Since titanium is stronger than aluminum you can use a much thinner piece, which results in more flex, and more articulation

3. Titanium is fun......kind of like a puppy on christmas morning:x :-P ;-)

4. Lastly, titanium is much more affordable than you think...you can get a piece for less than you would spend on a pizza

I will talk highly of anyone in this forum who can guess where the quote in my signature came from...without cheating:shock:

Fishing w/ John.

Get a vid after you get it running. I think that will help end the controversy.

There is controversy?

Ahhh yes....Fishing With John.....dezfan gets the prize. Now the real question........do you own it on dvd? If so, we need to hook up and blow some lines sometime:lol:

I have a hard time finding people who have seen the series....I have an even harder time finding people who appreciate Lurie....his art cracks me up......gotta love a guy who has paintings with titles such as...."My name is Skinny I am a horse and I want to have sex with your wife, OK?".......and......"First you blow us, then we'll let you go"....and......"Heroin leads to harder drugs".

Anyway, that certainly has nothing to do with Titanium.......or does it?

No, I don't, sorry.

Well, I got my new piece of titanium alloy yesterday and made another stick chassis last night.

This time I went with a piece of seamless tubing, 3al 2.5v alloy. It was 3/4" diameter with a wall thickness of .039".

After cutting the tube down the middle (lengthwise, and hence making 2 separate chassis) I drilled holes, fabricated some mounts, and mounted the chassis, open side up, to the axles. The machining of the tube was easy.

All I lack are the new Axiom hand wound crawler motors and she'll be finished.

The strength is incredible...lots of backbone...even at only .039" thick.
The amount of flex allowed for a nearly perfect amount of articulation. I would say it articulates about 70 degrees, and after the motors are mounted that will be closer to 75 or so.

No break-in time was needed whatsoever. After I FINALLY get my Axioms (dam, they're slow) I will post up some pics.

Mount two flat peices, angled at eachother like angle... no need to bend it. Just use two peices of angle aluminum at the ends to as brackets to hold the flat peices of Ti. Problem solved, and much cleaner looking. Should flex/twist more also.

Here's some pics of the Ti-Stick, almost complete...

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-1.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-2.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-3.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-4.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-5.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-6.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-7.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-8.jpg

Some flex shots (no break-in time required)........


http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-13.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-12.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-11.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-10.jpg

http://www.bestbuyclassics.com/Ti-Stick-9.jpg