I can’t tell if there’s additional vibe, I should have tested it before I put it in. If there is, it’s really hard to tell, like hold your fingernail in the spinning center area and wait quite a while and judge kinda deal. I am thinking no, not really? But if you are a vibe fanatic I would probably avoid this treatment just on principle.
I dunno, it’s slightly more micro-textured than the raw now. Hard to say. Different than the grey or black, that’s not a texture really.
It looked to my eye like the rocks were wearing off any surface effects created by the torching, after a few hours of tumbling with the rocks you can only really see the torching effects in the cups now, which the rocks had difficulty getting to. The rims looked close to raw to me. That implies torching just changes the surface??? I don’t know, someone who knows a lot more than me about Ti and torching should answer that.
Anyway I wanted to try this for sure, but overall I think prefer the other finishes so I probably won’t be doing another one. It’s also kinda labor intensive to be honest.
The coloring from torching is created by formation of an oxide layer on the surface. As its thickness changes, it affects how much it absorbs light of different frequencies. So yes the coloration effect from torching is from a microscopic thin layer on the surface only.
Ok fam I’m gonna do it tonight or tomorrow to my VERY torched TiHawk. Only question I have before I start is, will MousePads fit in my TiHawk? G2 doesn’t have it in their list of throws on the site so I can’t actually look up the response size. I would assume it’s standard 19mm and the MousePads I have will work just fine, but we all know what assuming did to the curious bed-jumping monkey cat.
This is a really cool experiment, thanks for documenting all of this! A few thoughts:
First thing that came to my mind, is to wrap it in a couple of large tube socks. Like, drop the container down into the bottom of the sock, twist the excess top portion a little bit and then fold it back down over the outside. With like two or three socks- one a time.
I took some outdoor pics in sun and shade to get a better sense of the resulting “stonewashed” finish, which can be subtle and hard to see in nighttime pics.
Would you recommend this with a black one? And also, is the titanium sealed in any kind of way that is effectively ruined by doing this? You mentioned that the grey and black ones were actually anodized, correct?
You can look up the rationale for the AMS type industrial coatings on titanium if you are curious. It’s really quite optional because Titanium is crazily durable.
Seals and treatments on top of titanium are very much optional and are more for the aesthetics and texture effect as opposed to protection. Ti is supremely durable, especially for abrasion resistance which is what we want for yoyos.
Titanium alloys in and of themselves have outstanding corrosion resistance so the question is often asked why would anyone have to coat titanium? As a diverse metal finishing house offering nearly 100 different coatings and finishes on all sorts of metal and non-metallic components, Anoplate can emphatically state that corrosion resistance is only one reason for coating parts:
We coat parts to improve their appearance including making them shiny or changing their color to give them greater appeal. Parts that go into optical assemblies often get a dull black finish to make them less reflective. Black coatings are also used to impart particular thermal characteristics.
Specific coatings such as silver and gold are used to increase surface conductivity while others are used to render a surface non-conductive or more electrically resistant.
Anoplate also coats many parts with tin-lead or nickel or silver to assist in joining parts using solder or brazing techniques.
Often the coating we’re asked to apply is more related to the desired surface characteristics of the assembled component rather than the individual piece, thus surface engineering is probably a more appropriate description of what Anoplate provides.
So is the ano process for titanium different from aluminum? This whole process is still kiiiind of confusing to me, so sorry if these are silly questions.
I’m not sure, the newer G2 use standard silicone 19mm sticker sizes, older ones require flowable or some other non-standard thing. Hawk is an older yo-yo so I would guess flowable?
Actually I just looked at my Ti Hawk and it is indeed using a sticker, 100% confirmed, so maybe Jake redesigned that bit for the Ti run?
