Manufacturing titanium jewelry
With the exception of investment cast titanium for some watch casings, to the best of our knowledge the jewelry industry makes exclusive use of the unalloyed titanium grades TIKRUTAN RT 12, material no. 3.7025 and TIKRUTAN RT 15, material no. 3.7035, mainly in the form of thin sheet.
Titanium can be processed by all methods commonly used in the manufacture of jewelry, although a certain amount of know-how and metalworking experience is required.
These methods include sawing, punching, filing, milling, planing and drilling. Titanium can be joined to other titanium parts or to different metals and is also ideal for inlay work.
Taking material-specific properties into account, joints can be made by welding, soldering and adhesive bonding. Adhesive joints are enhanced by a roughened or serrated surface.
Please refer to our TIKRUTAN catalog for fabricating details.
Anodizing is a special kind of surface treatment for titanium which is used to produce attractive and lasting surface coloration. This method necessitates careful preparation of the surfaces to be coated involving degreasing and subsequent pickling in a mixture of hydrofluoric and nitric acid.
Titanium is a metal with the rare capacity to form a permanent oxide coating which can refract and absorb light to take on extremely decorative colors. Titanium also displays an attractive metallic luster in the smooth mechanically polished condition.
Anodizing strengthens and densifies the existing thin passive layers, resulting in a spectrum of surface colors ranging from silver and gold through blue and purple to pale blue.
Deutsche Titan, Nov. 2000