What's titanium worth to you?

Discussion in 'Materials' started by Stumble, Nov 24, 2012.

  1. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    I am in the middle of putting together a marketing proposal for a few boat builders near me, and am curious what people would be willing to pay for titanium as opposed to stainless parts. Specifically I am curious if people would be willing to pay twice as much, three times as much, not a bit... For the moment I would really prefer to stay away from discussing actual price.


    Just as a quick review, the advantages are:

    1) completely non-corrosive. So a titanium bolt will literly outlast the boat
    2) no more rust stains ever
    3) 1/2 the weight
    4) significantly stronger (exact amount depends on grade)


    If anyone happens to have a parts list, and the estimated amount that's list would cost in 304 or 316 stainless I would love to see those numbers. One of the things I would like to figure out is how much BoatA is currently spending on stainless, versus how much they would spend on titanium, then compare that to the final price of the boat.
     
  2. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    How the hell can we discuss if we would pay for it if we don't know the price.

    How much would you bid me for my wallet?
     
  3. JTF
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    JTF Junior Member

    I think it would only be viable in the top end boats and even then I think it's not a viable material to use if your only sales points are the ones you mention. A high quality 316 stainless will not leave rust stains nore will it corrode. As far as weight saving the amount of stainless hardware on your average boat would not equate to much. Personally I wouldn't use it as a standard feature on a craft but maybe as an option to those who only want the best of the best for no particular reason.
     
  4. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    If stainless boats did work there would be more of them . I understand stainless is only 30% more than mild steel, crikey its just a shovel or 2 of Chromium.

    Stainless boats have been made, they crack --constantly.

    Stainless is pretty well much only good for what it was invented for,---making kitchen sinks.
     
  5. masalai
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    masalai masalai

  6. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    Frosty,

    I am trying to get a gauge of how much more you would consider it that the 304 stainless most chandleries carry. For instance if a stainless bolt is x dollars, would you be willing to pay any more if the part was titanium.

    At least at this point a titanium vs steel ship is barely worth talking about. It has been done (exacally once to my knowledge). I was talking about things like fasteners, railings, fittings, ect. Not the hull.
     
  7. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    On race boats titanium was troublesome. Even simple pieces like stanchions pulpits are prone to fracture and failure. I cant really think of any piece that's a candidate for Titanium. Threaded titanuim fittings are a challenge to disassemble.

    Interior fittings look nice in titanium. Titaniums dull shine looks good and compliments a semi gloss interior finish. Normally I use bead blasted stainless for the Interior "titanium look ".

    Pehaps concentrate on interior decorative fittings. They also benifit the boat by being light weight.
     
  8. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    JTF,

    This is exacally what we are trying to figure out. Again without putting numbers to it. If we start with a boat that costs $200,000 new, and were to replace all the stainless onboard with titanium, at a price increase of X. At what point would you consider the extra cost of X to be worth it?
     
  9. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    Anodized or plated hardware is not cheap and has a limited lifespan.
     
  10. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    Do you have any evidence of this, or is this just another of your silly tirades on something you don't have any evidence for? Titanium is LESS fatigue prone than steel. There are a number of structures that take massive amounts more abuse than boats where titanium has replaced steel because it is less prone to failure than steel is. A number of my customers are boat builders that have been replacing stainless with titanium in those areas where failure just isn't an option (engine mounts for instance).

    As for titanium screw fittings being a problem to disassemble. Perhaps if you use all metal titanium lock nuts. But Boeing doesn't seem to have a problem doing it. The US Navy seems to like them, and despite selling them around the world I have never had a customer having any worse of a problem with titanium than stainless, usually less.


    Michael,

    If you have information the rest of the titanium industry doesn't, and that the US Military and FAA haven't found in all their testing I would love to see it. I deal with this stuff every day, and the problems you are talking about just are not the reports I get back from my users.
     
  11. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    I would pay more --if the application required it. I cant think of an application just now.

    Some English cars had titanium, wheel nuts in the 70's there were no problems
     
  12. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    Sure, I have practicle experience. I fix the broken stuff !!!

    With titanium there is little space between the yield point and the failure point.

    Show us your titanium Stantions and Pulpits..new and ten years old.

    Id also like to have a look at your titanium running backstay tangs.

    How do you prevent galling ?
     
  13. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    Almost exacally the same delta as for 6000 series aluminium. But this is really not the point. Lets say you have a stainless pulpit currently that will withstand 10,000 pounds of load. This would typically mean that the stainless tubing will deform at 10,000lbs and the tubing will rip at about 30,000 lbs. A G5 titanium tube of the same size wouldn't deform until around 40,000lbs, but would rip at about 50,000lbs. So ya, you don't have as much margin with the titanium, but is is massively stronger than the steel.

    This will be difficult since we have been selling them for about six months.

    Pretty much any anti-seizing compound. For high wear items like inside mechanical parts anodizing.


    As for durability... The original F4 Phantoms built during the Vietnam war were still using their original titanium frames when they were retired. Or the SR-71 Blackburds that were about 90% titanium. Titanium is also the material of choice for long term nuclear storage containment drums, with a nominal service life of 1,000,000 years. Normal engineering recomendations in fact say that you do not need to provide any corrosion allowance for titanium since it will not measurably corrode over the service life of the parts.




    This is really far afield from the question I was asking. Thanks for the interruption.
     
  14. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    Ok, Ive been dealing with titanium gear on sailing yachts for 25 years.

    If you have the money anything goes, we always carried duplicates.

    Custom Titanium fabrications from Ian Terry in the UK are not cheap

    Another troublesome detail is working with titanium in the field.

    Drill a hole, grab a tap and cut some threads......then tell us your observations ?
     

  15. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    Specific to the marine environmet... since its impractical to build a one hundred percent titanuim boat,
    address this issue .....

    " titanium, its corrosion resistance is compromised by exposure to halides such as chlorides or fluorides. Residual chlorides lead to stress corrosion cracking while fluorides readily attack the natural oxide that protects titanium from atmospheric corrosion. In addition, due to titanium’s extremely passive nature, when titanium components are in contact with more electrochemically active materials such as aluminum, zinc or copper, where the materials meet there is such a galvanic charge generated due to the dissimilar metal junction, galvanic corrosion is wildly accelerated beyond what either metal by itself would experience"
     
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