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[Neonivek]

So basically Titanium wouldn't be discovered by Dwarves unless they easily use extremely high temperatures. Which to my knowledge they don't.

Lava doesn't actually get that hot. (only about 2000 degrees F)

[G-Flex]

It's not melting point. It's the fact that it wasn't able to be isolated.

I mean, consider aluminum. Bauxite has aluminum in it, but it's chemically bonded to other stuff, so unless you can isolate it (which requires relatively high-tech chemical/electrical processes) it's not going to do you much good. Same thing.

Or hydrogen, for that matter. Water has hydrogen in it, but that doesn't give it the properties of elemental hydrogen.


Basically, it doesn't matter what the melting point of titanium is, because they wouldn't have been able to isolate it in the first place. The melting point only matters if you can get the stuff by itself somehow.

[Neonivek]

The Aluminum the game uses is the incredably rare (and some of my chemistry friends say unheard of and non-existant) natural Aluminum.

[G-Flex]

Yeah, I know. That's a different situation. As far as titanium goes, I don't think native, elemental metal really exists on Earth.

[Neonivek]

Yeah, I know. That's a different situation. As far as titanium goes, I don't think native, elemental metal really exists on Earth.

Yep so there is no way for Dwarves to discover it except through chemical and electrical processes they do not have access to.

Would sort of be cool if magic could extract titanium, except that the magician believes that she is in fact creating it out of an otherwise worthless (or semi-worthless) rock.

[Mysteriousbluepuppet]

Chemist here

Titanium cant be melted in classic conditions, it will take fire before melting. You can imagine why it's not the best for forging.

[G-Flex]

To be fair, you don't have to even necessarily get close to melting point in order to forge something, but... yeah, 3560 K is pretty goddamn high.

Of course, forging also depending on whether titanium work-hardens, work-softens, or otherwise responds to applied heat and stress. Beats me.

[Andeerz]

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=118510&highlight=titanium

It's been hard trying to find information about titanium with regard to making implements such as blades and such, but this thread has some good info as the people who have posted here have worked with Ti before.  There are different alloys, many of them able to be forged.  It's trickier to work with than steel and iron, but it has some properties that make it better for some applications.  According to some of the people in this thread, it can hold a good edge, but won't last as long as an edge put on a spring steel blade.  I'll investigate this forum further regarding the properties of titanium... my impression is that it is a lot like aluminum alloys in most cases; it might be significantly lighter and stronger for the weight, but it might be more brittle than spring steel.

[Shade-o]

What if it was smeltable through some sort of low-magic/alchemy? If dwarves have any sort of supernatural power, it would be in working stone and metal.

[Andeerz]

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=90618&highlight=titanium+fumes

This thread on the Armour Archive has a LOT of practical information about titanium alloys.  If titanium were to be available in DF, I think it would have to require some pretty ridiculous alchemy, especially to get the right alloys that are actually useful.  But those alloys have ridiculously exotic metals in them sometimes and those can be a challenge to isolate as well assuming they don't come out during the process of isolating Ti.  Well, for what it's worth, check out the above link.  It's cool to read about how people work with the stuff with regard to armour.

[RavingManiac]

Fun fact: Titanium is NOT superior to steel as weapon material:

http://swordforum.com/metallurgy/titanium.html
http://www.finishing.com/106/51.shtml

Titanium has a higher strength:weight ratio, but a lower strength:volume ratio. A sword made of the stuff would need to be thicker (and hence less good at cutting) for the same amount of strength, and would also be less able to hold an edge due to being softer than steel.

[Andeerz]

Nice!    Thanks for those oh-so-awesome links!

[ZCM]

Also, I doubt the effectiveness of solving the problem of hard-to-get flux by adding another weapon metal that is about as hard to get as aluminium.

[nitpick] Actually, titanium is the ninth-most common element in the Earth's crust. The reason it's expensive is because it naturally occurs as titanium dioxide, and seperating the pure titanium is extremely difficult. [/nitpick]

[Andeerz]

Good nitpick there! 

Also, given what's been covered in the linked-to posts, even if titanium alloys were in the game, they wouldn't be nearly as useful for bladed weapons as steel, and probably just as useful as steel for armour (given that the titanium is available as a harden-able alloy and the steel in question is a heat-temper-able steel!).  Titanium for armour would be lighter for the same strength, and could be made as thin with comparable strength (though in that case it might actually be weaker, however probably no where as prone to denting as wrought iron or mild steel).  However, for some pieces of armour increase in mass could concievably help with reducing impact... but I would argue that that is a secondary concern if a concern at all... Though the corrosion resistance of titanium is pretty awesome!

Long story short, even if titanium alloys were in game, they wouldn't provide any advantage over steel for weaponry (and might actually be detrimental; read the sword forum link), and wouldn't be much more useful for armour than steel.   

[Neonivek]

Given that Steel isn't super common in some cases... I don't think "It isn't as good as steel" is a good point for or against its inclusion.

Is it better then Iron?