Way to go, Lawson! Bringing small quantities of titanium to the people at a fair price!
But, yes, what do you do with it? That was the dilemma that Ryan Jordan faced back in 2006–nobody wanted to buy the 24" .062" 6AL-4V rods that the Gear Shop sold. So during his annual inventory reduction sale, he offered them for 50% off, just to get rid of them. He made a sort of contest of it, offering a free year of BPL membership to anyone that came up with something unique using that titanium rod. I bit on it, just for fun. I made my first grill from the metal, and it was something that only a mother could love. But it worked. I sent Ryan some photos. Ryan gave me a year's worth of BPL, and he asked me to make a couple of grills for him. He even sent me some more titanium rods. After maybe 6-7 grills, I came up with a couple that actually looked and worked quite well, and I sent them to him. That's how my Zia grills came into being.
Pretty soon, one thing led to another. When you have a stockpile of titanium in the basement, and a blizzard is raging outside, the graph lines seem to intersect. I found myself sitting in the basement war room, bending titanium into all sorts of shapes, making useless, but cool (and lightweight) gizmos. Then I had to buy some titanium foil from Ti Goat, and try my hand with wind screens. Then came the pot supports, etc. etc. There's always something cool to be made from titanium, if you are a true geek.
To answer some questions asked in the above posts:
Haywood-For a grill to be made from 6AL-4V titanium, the .0625" rod will work best, but you really should be using commercially pure rod. I use CP-type 2 rod for my Zia grills, as it is easier to bend, and it has better physical properties when exposed to intense heat. In making a wire bail for a bucket, I think the .0935" rod would be best. the .125" rod is extremely difficult to bend by hand, but it's rigidity makes for great tent stakes. Incidentally, the custom pot stands that I made/sold last winter were made from both .0625" and .09" rod. For boiling just 2 C. of water, the thinner diameter works fine. But for heavier loads, or for a taller pot stand, you'll want to go with the .093".
-BG- The only way that you can truly weld titanium is by using an argon chamber to keep oxygen out. However, Josh Leavitt does some good work with his titanium grills without an argon chamber, employing a type of pressure welding technique.
David-I went down to the basement and weighed ten-18" titanium rods. They were 42 g., or 4.2 g. per rod.
Lawson, you might also consider finding some CP Type 2 rod in both the .0625" and .09-.10" diameters. Those might be useful to some people. I love the creative offerings that you always seem to come up with.
