I had a chance to play with my titanium bar today. It's interesting stuff to hold. It looks and feels exactly like SS, but is obviously lighter. It took me by surprise the first time I pick up a piece of the bar.

I decided to make an M5 screw for practice. First impressions are very good. It cuts and drills like butter with carbide tooling and drill bits (solid carbide drill bits are superb- I'll be getting more). The finish is beautiful. The swarf is razor sharp. Sharp HSS tooling cuts nicely too, although my cobalt HSS parting tool complained a bit while parting off. I kept the pressure up to prevent overheating the blade, but it was quite 'grabby'. I managed to part off without getting the blade too hot. I'll setup my mist coolant system tomorrow and see if that improves things.

Cutting the thread was easy enough. The die started to squeal as the threading progressed and I could feel it binding as I'd read titanium does. I backed it out and applied Trefolex paste. That helped a lot. I had turned the blank to 5mm. I would try slightly under that next time. The threads are very clean and crisp.

It gave off some bright white sparks when cutting the screw slot with a Dremel carbide disc. The screw head was polished on a buffing wheel after facing (no filing or sanding) and has a mirror finish.

Can anyone recommend an eBay seller with a reasonable quality carbide parting tool to suit a Hercus sized lathe (fairly thin blade I'm thinking)?

The pics came out in reverse order. The first pic is of drilling swarf. The other swarf pic is from turning with a carbide insert tool.
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