Subject: Chemical Milling of Commercially Pure Titanium

From: Composites Lab <[email-masked]>
Date: 23 Jul 1996 20:01:51 GMT

I am in search of a chemical or electrochemical milling technique to remove about 0.03 inches 
of CP Ti from a piece of jewelery I'm trying to make.  I probably have access to any equipment 
necessary.  I am also looking for a maskant to use as an etch stop on this piece so as to make 
a specific pattern on the piece.  Any advice would be appreciated.

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From: Jon Elson <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Jul 1996 05:02:30 GMT

>a specific pattern on the piece.  Any advice would be appreciated.
Ohhhh!  This sounds bad!  Ti is one of the most corrosion resistant metals known, outside
of the noble metals.  To get clean edges with minimal undercutting, you need to complete
the etching very fast.  To get etching .030" deep, it is (IMHO) impossible to do this with
liquid processing.  I think you would have to go to ion beam etching or plasma etching.
I frequently etch the copper patterns on circuit boards, but the depth is only .001".
To go 30 times deeper with liquid etchants sounds very hard.

The only other thing I can think of is EDM, which might work well.