how much is a broken titanium frame worth for just the titanium?
haven’t googled right enough

hmm 11£/kg for ingot apparently

Is that for pure Ti? Are bike frames pure Ti or some alloy that no one else wants? Might change things if they are…

I remember Lynskey saying it was $150/lb going in and $15/lb going out.

no idea. presumably that’s for pure, whatever that means

Stick it on eBay with a clear description and pics of the damage. Someone will buy it to try and repair it or for bits of tube for a project. You’ll get more than scrap value.

what does that mean then brant? once they’ve done something to it it becomes less valuable as material?

Yes, AFAIK brand new tubes are much nicer to work with than ones that somebody else has already cut to specific sizes, put bends into, and welded bits onto.

i’m looking a short length of say seat stay, to cut slices of to make a couple of wedding rings.
be nice if it was formerly a bit of bike.

I’m off to China tomorrow. I can bring you some off cuts back.

My little bro picked up some billet pretty cheap on ebay a few years back and milled his own rings, and a set of darts which were pretty useless as they weighed about the same as paper aeroplanes 😆

what does that mean then brant? once they’ve done something to it it becomes less valuable as material?

@james most materials are worth less “post consumer”, 10:1 ratio does seem a lot though

jamiesilo – Member

what does that mean then brant? once they’ve done something to it it becomes less valuable as material?

how i read it:

they buy Ti (tubes / billet) at $150 / lb

they sell the scrap/swarf at $15 / lb

at least, that’s my take on it, and we get through a fair bit of Titanium (and other expensive metals – our swarf bins are valuable enough that we have to store them securely)

could you brant? that would be well smart! ideally a bit that tapers around 18mm internal diameter
give you a shout in a week or so can i?
or give you a reminder somehow while you’re there? : )

aye ahwhiles/sunday jumper. i figured that out

how i read it:

they buy Ti (tubes / billet) at $150 / lb

they sell the scrap/swarf at $15 / lb

+1

Quite an extreme ratio but titanium is very hard to process/reprocess so to make it worth it they will have to buy it cheap.

Your bike frame will be an alloy, probably be Ti-3Al-2.5V

Aerospace and medical applications normally use Ti-6Al-4V

3Al-2.5V is lower hardness and strength but less brittle and more ductile. It is also cheaper.

I remember one of the frame brands about 10 years ago saying you couldn’t make seamless tubes in 6Al/4V, hence 3/2.5 was much more suitable. but Litespeed were making the Ultimate out of 6/4 at the time, so no idea!

is brant brant brant back from china yet then?
do you need a reminder? any luck?
: )

He’s been tweeting lots of pics of niche beer bottles. I think he’ll be gone some time.

i’m looking a short length of say seat stay, to cut slices of to make a couple of wedding rings.
be nice if it was formerly a bit of bike.

Bought mine, for about £60 – I assume you have access to something to mill a nice bevelled edge on a random bit of tube?

They are a bit of a PITA actually – scratches sinks and other things merely by looking at them and asve to keep remembering to take it off before climbing, bike rides, DIY…

asve to keep remembering to take it off before climbing, bike rides, DIY…
is that wedding rings in general or Ti ones?
i have a very good pair of hands to work them and he also has a milling machine

I remember one of the frame brands about 10 years ago saying you couldn’t make seamless tubes in 6Al/4V, hence 3/2.5 was much more suitable. but Litespeed were making the Ultimate out of 6/4 at the time, so no idea!

6/4 is so hard it trashes the dies used to form tubes (and other cutting tools). IIRC the 6/4 tubes Litespeed used were rolled and welded sheet (ie. not seamless); dont know about the Vortex but I had an Obed back in the day and their higher end MTB frames (Ocee, Tellico) had 6/4 downtubes made this way at least. The dropouts and BB shell on the Obed were 6/4 and waterjet-cut (and a pain for Q/Rs to get any purchase on, only Shimano skewers worked for me).

I remember Lynskey saying it was $150/lb going in and $15/lb going out.

Cracked titanium must be worth less then… 🙂

£200ish/lb according to some. http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/whys-no-one-buying-my-frame

I thought we’d agreed Ti was worth about 1/3rd RRP? 😉

EDIT: Damnit beaten to it!

Ti rings are harder than gold so its a bugger to cut off in event of an accident. Worse case scenario can be losing a finger…which is my excuse for not wearing mine 😉

I made my missus a Ti ring using a piece of Ti steerer tube. I cut a 5mm wide section, then cut a slot in it and bent it to shape around a piece of dowel about the same width as her finger removing the extra material. Filed the edges to put a bevel on it. I was thinking of polishing it and trying to anodise it as per Leni Fried but left it as it was.