Titanium Cracks

[JNewman]

I just forged some titanium that I picked up at Quad state down to blocks for a machine shop. When I was done there were little tiny cracks all over the face of the blocks. I tried grinding them off and found I had to machine about .030" off the face to get rid of them. I used a preheated gas forge to heat them.

Anyone know what caused this? I forged it from a yellow heat to a medium red. It was pretty hard at the red and really soft at the bright yellow. I did not flux the titanium. Was this more likely oxidization or working too cold or just a fact of life with TI?

[Bruce Macmillan]

Not all ti is forgeable , if you can find out what alloy/grade it is....Google and ye find.....

[JNewman]

It definitely is a forgeable grade I bought it from a guy who works at a big forging shop. He often has chunks of tool steels and other scraps from the shop that he buys as scrap. I also have a chunk of H13 that's about 15lb that I paid him about $28 for.

[Ries]

I have heard that the surface cracking is due to surface oxidisation. I am not 100% sure or this, but the time I saw John Rais forging a lot of titanium, he explained that the oxides formed really easily if the ti was forged unprotected, and that there was some cracking AND the oxides were really really hard to remove, so he did all his forging by heating the piece up to black heat, then rolling it in borax, like breading a chicken breast. Then he ran it all the way up to red/orange, boraxed it some more, then forged, reapplying borax as needed.