November contest answer...oooh look!

Guys and gals, I really enjoyed reading your responses guessing what in the world that little fixture could be for...you really are a sophisticated group :)

Alas, Sean of Vertigo Cycles, www.vertigocycles.com , shared the correct answer, although I think he may have had some inside experience ;)

Welding titanium is a finicky process that requires a couple things;

1.) a totally anal retentive approach to material prep and cleanliness
2.) an oxygen free environment until the material cools below 800 degrees F
3.) a methodical welding process to protect against the materials desire to pull and move
4.) patience

The fixture helps me with #2. As you can see in the pic below, a titanium grip section with a breather hole 1.0" from the end is inserted into the tight tolerance section of the fixture. The end is then plugged with the argon feed and argon will then fill the larger chamber through the breather hole. The slotted window allows me to drop in an end cap, push the grip section up tight, then weld it in place while bathed in an oxygen free environment. The flat stock orients the fixture on my roller so that I can still spin the grip section for fusing the end cap...silly fun!

When there is contamination...either oxygen, dirt, or otherwise, you will get a very pretty rainbow of purple and blue color; pretty now, doomed for failure later. You want a totally shiny finish when you are done. Here's the first piece out of the fixture...

Overall, I'm really please with how it came out.

Now, there were lots of super answers, but only one correct one. As Sean already has a shirt and stickers, I'm going to honor his request and pass on the bounty to Grumpy as he was first in with a more descriptive answer (Roy, you were in ballpark, but honesty, don't you teach kids? What kinda run on sentence was that? ...read with heavy sarcasm). So Grumpyone, email me and we'll get some stuff out to ya.

As a round up for the last two days...I powdered all the steel bars and finished fabrication on the Ti's this afternoon. Christi took a car full of packages to the post office and we have about 10 bars that we could not fit in to send tomorrow. So, if y'all are expecting a Luv, it should be coming soon.

cheers,

rody