Nix the carbide idea unless you have a carbide grinder to sharpen it on. I spoke with an old manual guy at work and he said the main problem is the 1\8" size on your tool. Go with a 3/32" with a 20 to 30 deg taper on the top with longest edge to the right and a 3 deg relief down the front. The key is being on center, square with the chuck and rigidity. Put the tool in the holder and verify you are at center, or a hair below, against a dead center in the tail stock. If you have tension stops on the carriage use them. Get in cut off position, tighten left to right and compound stops firmly. Insure you are parallel with the chuck, drag a indicator across the side of the blade if you have issues with this. Put a slight drag on the crosslide stop to prevent jumping in your leadscrew play. Applying the center will help greatly. If you can't center drill the part make a pressure pad out of aluminum with a centerdrilled hole on one side to go between the center and the part.
With the titanium it seems to work harden pretty quickly. Start out around 200 rpm and feed by hand fairly aggressively. Don't dwell or you will make your life miserable. If you have to break a chip release then get back into the cut quickly. When you get down to near a nub, 1/4"?or so remove center and finish the cut off. Like I said trying the 3/32" will help you out a lot. Good luck.
