Advice on knurling titanium

Titanium Knurler

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Hello All, first post here. I have some questions on straight knurling a 5/16”, Grade 5 titanium rod. I would like to knurl a 24”-36” rod creating 12 teeth along it’s length. The toothed rod will then be cut into shorter 11” pieces and two inches of the end turned down and threaded to 1/4-20. My questions are mostly related to whether it is possible to form knurl titanium. The local machine shop that would be doing the work does not think it is possible to knurl titanium. I have done some research and this is what I would like him to try:

Dorian Heavy Duty, three wheel knurling tool(3WKT-40-M,UPC23033)
Cobalt,12TPI, beveled knurling wheels(MS-12-CB,p/n 25339)

My calculations using the information on the Dorian website indicate that this set-up would form(not cut) 11.2 teeth(fine for my application and hopefully close enough that I won’t have any double tracking) and would give me a tooth elevation of .031 inches(also fine for what I m doing.

Does anyone have any experience with knurling titanium? Does anyone have experience with the Dorian three wheel knurling tool? Is what I propose possible with titanium or should I give up on this project as the machine shop suggests?

Thanks for your help!

I will try to post a link to Dorians website(doriantool.com) if it is possible to post links on this forum, so that you can see the three wheel knurling tool that I am considering. The website also has a nice little video of the the three wheel knurler in action on a long thin rod. Looks great to me, but will it knurl Grade 5 titanium?

I will also try to attach a photo of piece similar to what I want to make out of titanium, it’s just about half the length of what I want to make.
A025B0F1-C5DE-4278-8A11-CDE8A2E7AA48.jpeg
 
Have you talked to the Dorian tool company about this to get their thoughts?
 
I have sent a couple of emails and phoned a couple of times and left some voicemail but no response yet but apparently they have been having some “severe” weather there(freezing rain). I live in Wisconsin so hard to get too excited about freezing rain but I understand they are unprepared for such weather in Texas. Will keep trying.

Thanks for your help,
Mike
 
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First welcome! You want to move titanium so that you have 12 teeth with a 0.031” pointed rise on a 5/16 diameter? Have you ever worked with titanium before? It’s fun stuff! First off, I can’t see the formed point of the rise being of any good quality and or straight. Maybe machine the thing instead of forming with knurls. Or buy it extruded if possible. Or EDM it. My 3 cents...Dave
 
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I have not done it myself, however there were some amazing examples shared by Will (@darzero) in a thread here.
Unfortunatley, when PhotoBucket changed to a paid service those links were severed and we lost the pictures.
That thread is here (minus the pictures):
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/knurling-advice.57273/post-471199

I wonder if Will still has some photos he could/would repost on this site?!?

-brino

EDIT:
Some of Will's photo's are actually in the thread pointed to above, here are some direct links:
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/knurling-titanium.16134/post-166609
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/knurling-titanium.16134/post-167767
 
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Yup, @darkzero is the man when it comes to knurling Titanium. He does beautiful work.
 
Wow, thanks for all of your feedback!

What I want to do is not precision work so the form of the teeth is not important. The piece is used in fishing pole construction. It is the center of a handle extension that cork rings are slid onto and glued and then formed on a lathe. The teeth just dig into the cork and keep it from rotating. I will attach some photos to help clarify. Unfortunately one as long as I want is not produced. B9F5ED29-39AB-4EB9-8043-95D3EFDDA709.jpegA77211A17-8278-4FD3-B213-7D0F569A6D95.jpeg6A019D4B-C6CA-4B22-8A62-FE21B7665B6E.jpeg91FEF662-D359-4DAE-95B7-18E5ED178E65.jpegB9F5ED29-39AB-4EB9-8043-95D3EFDDA709.jpeg77211A17-8278-4FD3-B213-7D0F569A6D95.jpeg6A019D4B-C6CA-4B22-8A62-FE21B7665B6E.jpeg91FEF662-D359-4DAE-95B7-18E5ED178E65.jpegB9F5ED29-39AB-4EB9-8043-95D3EFDDA709.jpeg77211A17-8278-4FD3-B213-7D0F569A6D95.jpeg6A019D4B-C6CA-4B22-8A62-FE21B7665B6E.jpeg91FEF662-D359-4DAE-95B7-18E5ED178E65.jpegSorry, just had to throw the fish picture in!
 
Sorry about all the pictures, Forum gave me the choice of thumbnails or full size image; looks like it/I sent both.

Just had to send fish picture but it illustrates why I am using titanium instead of aluminum since there is a lot of stress put on this part with a large salmon on a fly rod.
 
Cant speak to titanium, but I built a spreadsheet using the simple equations on this website. It dramatically improved my knurling quality once I pre-determined the correct starting diameter within tolerance relative to the chosen knurl wheel parameters. They might be another good contact reference as its their core business. At least I found them very helpful on the phone.
http://accu-trak.com/technicalinfo.html
 
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