Titanium Grade
Grade 5 titanium, explained.
What Ti-6Al-4V actually is, why we choose it for precision-machined tools, where it outperforms steel and aluminium, and where it does not.
Reading time: about 6 minutes. Written for people who own or are about to own a titanium tool, not for metallurgists. Every number below is a typical value for annealed Grade 5 bar; real batches vary a little.
The name says it all: Ti-6Al-4V is titanium with 6% aluminium and 4% vanadium by weight. Trace iron, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen make up the last fraction of a percent, and those traces are what the grade limits control.
Why we use Grade 5
We did not pick titanium because it sounds premium. We picked it because, for compact parts that must stay light, resist deformation and survive years of daily carry, it is the right material.
Lets us remove material and keep mechanisms compact without making structural parts fragile. A 2 mm titanium wall does the job of a much thicker aluminium one.
Just over half the density of stainless steel. On a keychain or a pocket tool you carry every day, that difference is the whole experience.
Sweat, rain and salt are normal environments for EDC. Grade 5 handles them without coatings, plating or special care, so nothing can wear off.
Where Grade 5 sits among the titanium grades
"Titanium" on a product listing covers everything from soft commercially pure sheet to aerospace alloy. The ASTM grade number tells you which one you are holding.
99%+ titanium, no alloying. Soft, very formable, excellent in chemical plants and heat exchangers. Grade 2 is the common one. Roughly a third of the strength of Grade 5, so it dents and bends easily in a pocket tool.
The workhorse alloy. By a wide margin the most-used titanium alloy in the world, and the one every structural part on this site is machined from. Strong, light, heat-treatable and machinable with the right tooling.
The tubing alloy. Half the alloying content of Grade 5, so it bends and welds more easily. Rarely seen in machined pocket tools.
Grade 5 with extra-low interstitials. Same recipe, tighter limits on oxygen and iron. Slightly less strength, more fracture toughness. Specified where cracking is a safety issue, such as implants; not "better" for a pocket tool.
The numbers that matter in your hand
Compared with the other metals EDC tools are commonly made from. Values are typical for the standard tempers named in the header.
| Property | Grade 5 titanium | Grade 2 titanium | 304 stainless | 7075-T6 aluminium | 6061-T6 aluminium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Density (g/cm³) | 4.43 | 4.51 | 8.00 | 2.81 | 2.70 |
| Tensile strength (MPa) | 950 | 345 | 520 | 570 | 310 |
| Yield strength (MPa) | 880 | 275 | 215 | 505 | 275 |
| Hardness | 36 HRC | ~200 HB | ~180 HB | ~150 HB | ~95 HB |
| Elastic modulus (GPa) | 114 | 105 | 193 | 72 | 69 |
| Thermal conductivity (W/m·K) | 6.7 | 17 | 16 | 130 | 167 |
| Melting range (°C) | ~1600–1660 | ~1665 | ~1400–1450 | ~475–635 | ~580–650 |
| Magnetic | No | No | Weakly, when worked | No | No |
| Nickel content | No intentional addition | No intentional addition | 8–10% | No intentional addition | No intentional addition |
| HRC and HB are different hardness scales; 36 HRC is roughly 335 HB. Steel and aluminium values are for the common annealed or T6 condition, not for hardened knife steels. | |||||
The short version: Grade 5 is about 45% lighter than stainless steel, roughly twice as strong as common stainless, and far more corrosion-resistant than high-strength aluminium. For us, that means thinner walls, smaller parts and less weight without giving up structural strength.
Why it never rusts
Titanium is actually a very reactive metal. That sounds like a flaw, and it is the whole trick. The moment bare titanium meets air it grabs oxygen and grows a film of titanium dioxide a few nanometres thick. That film is dense, chemically inert and bonded to the metal underneath.
Scratch through it and the exposed metal re-oxidises within seconds. The layer is self-healing, which is why a titanium tool that has lived in salt spray, sweat, rain and a gym bag for years still looks like metal rather than a science experiment.
That matters on a tool that spends years around sweat, keys and pockets. It is also why we do not need to coat, plate or seal any of our titanium parts: the surface protects itself, and skin only ever touches a stable oxide, not raw metal.
It will scratch. Here is why, and what we do about it.
Grade 5 is strong, meaning it takes a lot of force to bend or break. It is not especially hard, meaning its surface can be marked by anything harder than about 36 HRC. Pocket grit is mostly quartz, which is harder than Grade 5, common stainless steels and glass. A titanium tool carried daily will pick up fine marks. So will most steel ones.
What matters is how a finish ages, not whether it ages. We choose surface finishes for how they look after a year, not on day one:
Colour without paint or dye
Anodized titanium colours are the same physics as the rainbow on a soap bubble or a drop of oil on wet asphalt: thin-film interference.
The part is submerged in an electrolyte and a controlled voltage is applied. Higher voltage grows a thicker oxide layer. Light reflecting off the top of the film and light reflecting off the metal beneath interfere, cancelling some wavelengths and reinforcing others. No pigment, paint or dye is deposited on the surface; the colour comes from the controlled thickness of titanium's own oxide layer. That also means the colour layer is only tens of nanometres thick: it is durable against chemicals and UV, but a hard scratch through it shows silver metal.
Why a titanium tool costs what it does
The metal is only part of it. Grade 5 fights back at every stage of machining, and every fight costs minutes.
Steel carries heat away into the chips. Titanium keeps it at the cutting edge, so cutting speeds are substantially lower than for most steels and aluminium alloys, and heat has to be managed with coolant at every step.
Titanium chips weld themselves to carbide edges and the surface hardens as it is cut. Inserts are changed several times more often than on stainless, and every change is downtime.
A lower elastic modulus means the part flexes away from the cutter and springs back after. Holding tight tolerances takes lighter passes, rigid fixturing and a second finishing operation.
Raw Grade 5 bar also costs several times more per kilogram than stainless, because extracting titanium from ore is an energy-hungry, multi-stage chemical process rather than a simple melt. We machine from certified Grade 5 bar supplied with mill test reports, rather than unverified stock of unknown chemistry or origin, which is the cheapest way to make "titanium" that behaves like something else.
What those numbers mean in your pocket
No nickel, no chromium, no coatings. If stainless watch backs or belt buckles give you a rash, Grade 5 almost certainly will not.
Grade 5 is essentially non-ferromagnetic in everyday use: a magnet does nothing to it and it will not pick up steel filings in a workshop. That describes the titanium, not any steel spring, screw or magnet that may be fitted to a finished tool.
That 6.7 W/m·K in the table is why. Aluminium pulls heat out of your hand roughly twenty times faster, so a titanium part picked up outdoors on a winter morning is cool, not shockingly cold.
Around 10 to 14% elongation before fracture. Pry with it beyond sense and it deforms first, giving warning. Steel hardened to 60 HRC has far less give and is more likely to fail suddenly.
No pitting in salt water, no tarnish, no smell transfer, no chalky oxidation. The surface picks up marks; the metal underneath is the same in twenty years.
The same geometry in 304 stainless would weigh about 80% more and, on the typical values above, begin to yield permanently at roughly a quarter of the load. Stainless is stiffer in the elastic range, so it flexes less before that point. That is the entire argument, and it holds up.
Things people say about titanium
Crossed out where they are wrong or half right.
Questions we get about the material
How do I know a tool is really Grade 5?
Weight and magnetic response can tell you a part is probably titanium rather than steel, but they cannot distinguish Grade 5 from other titanium grades: Grade 2 is 4.51 g/cm³, Grade 5 is 4.43, and neither responds to a magnet. Grade verification comes from material traceability, meaning certified mill test reports or compositional testing. Our Grade 5 stock is purchased with mill certification identifying the alloy and heat lot.
Can I remove scratches myself?
On brushed finishes, yes: a fine non-woven abrasive pad stroked in the grain direction blends most marks. On stonewash, minor marks usually blend on their own with carry. On bead blast, no home method restores the matte evenly; we can re-blast for a small fee.
Will anodized colour fade in sunlight?
No. Interference colour has no pigment to bleach, so UV does nothing to it. It changes only if the oxide is worn or scratched through, or if the surface is heated above several hundred degrees.
Is titanium safe against skin all day?
Yes. It contains no nickel or other common sensitisers, does not corrode in sweat, and the same alloy family is implanted permanently inside people. Allergic reaction to titanium is extraordinarily rare.
Why not use Grade 23 everywhere if it is tougher?
Grade 23 trades a little strength for fracture toughness that matters inside a human body and almost never matters in a pocket tool. It also costs more and is harder to source in small-shop bar sizes. Grade 5 is the right balance for machined EDC.
Every structural part we sell is machined from certified Grade 5 bar.
Stonewashed by default, anodized on request, and marked with the same honesty as this page. Questions about a specific product's material? Ask us.