Just made this pipe about a week ago, similar to some of the ones in this thread. Also pictured is the aluminum case for it, a quarter for scale and it with a nice bowl pack. I decided to make a pipe out of titanium for a couple reasons. The predecessors to this pipe looked the same, but were made out of what I initially thought was stainless steel. I now think they're tool steel, which doesn't mean much except that it rusts more easily than stainless (some stainless will not rust at all), but not as easily as mild steel or iron. Rust generally wasn't a problem for me until I made the aluminum tube you see above for it. If I put it in there after smoking with resin still on it, it would get a little surface rust within a day. No big deal, but I'd rather it not rust if I'm out and about for a couple days with the pipe (on vacation or camping for instance). I thought of other possible metals. Aluminum was an obvious choice, but I decided not to because of Al's possible negative health effects. I settled on titanium for a few reasons. It doesn't corrode in the atmosphere, it's not as dense as steel (but denser than aluminum), it looks nice, it's non toxic and bio compatible (used in many medical implanted devices), and hey, I can say my pipe is made of titanium. It's pure titanium, as I'm obviously not gonna be using this as a spare shear pin or something, so the strength is irrelevant (titanium alloys are significantly stronger than pure, but more expensive and harder to machine). It was about $20 for a foot long 3/8" bar, so not cheap stuff. I can make 4 of these pipes from that bar though, so it's not too bad. This thing is easy to make on a lathe and only takes about 1-1.5 hours if you're experienced with using the tools (and I'm sure a turret lathe could do it in less than half the time). It was simply polishing, 5 drilling operations, and 2 chamfering operations. Drilling the main hole in the body was bothersome; I wasn't using any cutting oil because that stuff is hard to get rid of, and the titanium kept clogging the flutes of the drill. I had to keep backing the drill out and picking out the metal from the flutes. The hole in the bottom of the bowl is 0.080" in diameter and works really well. Nothing ever pulls through and it has plenty of airflow. I suppose if you didn't clean it much it could clog, but you could clean it with a paperclip in a pinch. I use cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol after toke so it stays nice. As far as the tiny bowl goes, it's plenty for me! I love that I can get nicely high every time off of one of those bowls of good mids. Seems to moderate my tolerance and I spend like $20-30 a month on herb .
thats pretty sick, i wish i had access to a machining shop like that. do you have to pay for materials? have you ever made a ti nail for a oil dome?
That is a beautiful thing! I didn't make mine, and mine is an alloy of 6al4v-12xyz or whatever it's called. Do you happen to have any extras you made that you'd like to get rid of? I agree with all your reasons for going with titanium. Very awesome.