suggestions to de-burr titanium?

I made myself a cookpot pot-stand and windscreen similar to other commercially available cones. Once out of paper, once out of aluminum flashing, and a final one from some Ti foil courtesy of Titanium Goat.

Cutting was a breeze (though the scissors I was using might disagree). But punching the air holes proved more of a challenge than I had expected. Two busted hole punches later (yeah, I'm a quick learner - surprised it didn't take a third!) I gave up on them working and headed for ye ole drill press. One formerly-sharp bit later and I have holes!

However, many of the holes have burrs - spots around the edges of the holes where the material pushed and tore rather than cutting out cleanly.

I've tried various dremel tool attachments to little effect. Time to hit the forum.

Does anybody have thoughts on how to de-burr Ti? Bear in mind that while it's going to be a user, I would prefer not to completely trash the cone in the process (a ******* file might be an option, but unless someone here has a better solution I think sandpaper and some serious hand protection are my next attempt).

Looking forward to what all might think. It's my first run-in with Ti foil and it's been a really fun little project!

Ti is hard to work with as you just found out. You will waste alot of accessories to your Dremel tool. (also wasted about 20 bucks of Dremel attachments) I used a file to debur and hammer to make straight again playing tin smith. And won't mess with Ti material again myself. :)

I used the same Ti foil you have multiple times, each time I used sandpaper to clean it up! Took a while and I went through several grits but with some elbow grease it worked out. I tried to attach some 600 grit to my drill and it worked ok but was a royal pain to control. In the end I found a thin pen and just wrapped the paper around it and went to town on it!

I too busted about 3 hole punches till I found one that worked well. It was a hole punch made for metal work, found online (amazon I think).

As a machinist for 20 years, my suggestion for future work with this type of material is it is sometimes easier to sandwich thin material between some thicker material and drill through. This method doesn't allow the space for a burr to be created and makes the cleanup much easier. Be sure that you clamp the pieces together else it won't work as well. Also a sharp tool will make this a much better experience.

Sanding papers, or cones made for metal working should get you there since it's too late this time for TATO's excellent advice.

When I wanted to point the ends of several Ti stakes, I used my belt sander with metal cutting belts...worked great.

a countersinking tool, used by hand instead of powered, sometimes does a good job

a step drill bit(w/ power) has a chamfering edge as it steps up

you would need to enter the hole from both sides, w/ both tools, to get the job done

you might use a piece of rigid foam as a backer, since you have already skipped the above sandwich advice

just a lazy old man's 2¢ worth

sw

I really thank you all for the great advice. Sandwiching it is a technique I was familiar with, but I didn't consider it for some reason; the reminder is most appreciated.

For future reference as searchers find this thread, I was able to roll most of the burrs back into the holes using the end of a Sharpie (is there anything they can't do?!). Then stepping through three ascending grits of wet/dry sandpaper wrapped around the Sharpie pulled the burrs from inside the holes. Working with the material on top of a very large metal bowl also helped tremendously as I was able to be quite forceful with it without creasing it.

I'll post some pics once I finish it off.

Thanks again, all.

I do a lot of work with titanium, though mostly with thicker material than foil. I would first hammer the burr down on a flat metal surface of a bench vice, then file or sand. For small holes, I will often use a punch followed by hammer and file, rather than trying to drill it. A drill press with sandwich technique might work well, but have not tried that technique.

carbide countersink?