Titanium (!) fire piston

Craft & Design Science
Titanium (!) fire piston
titanium fire piston.jpg

Miami’s exodus125 makes these custom titanium (!) fire pistons himself. They’re pricey, and in point of fact there’s not much need for titanium (!) in this application when aluminum works just as well and costs way, way less, but still: Titanium! Besides its well-known physical properties–lightweight, noncorroding, and extremely tough–titanium (!) has also been proven to cloud the minds of otherwise rational consumers like me, inducing irrational bouts of spending accompanied by mild ptyalism.

14 thoughts on “Titanium (!) fire piston

  1. cyenobite2 says:

    (Titanium) proven to cloud the minds of otherwise rational consumers like me, inducing irrational bouts of spending accompanied by mild ptyalism.

  2. ehrichweiss says:

    I was just thinking about using the “diesel” concept to light tinder last night but knew nothing of fire pistons. Talk about coincidence. Don’t think I’m gonna buy one of these but still pretty cool.

    1. ehrichweiss says:

      btw, there’s a guy selling fire pistons, that appear to be aluminum, 2 for $30-ish including shipping on ebay. They need some work he says but I’m guessing that’s O-rings at most.

  3. rjnerd says:

    but titanium will burn in a normal atmosphere. It burns hot, and is hard to extinguish. Its not anything close to Magnesium in flammability, but it can surprise the unwary. (I have seen a picture of the remains of a lathe, where the pile of titanium swarf ignited)

  4. Anonymous says:

    The link from the write up is old, here is an updated link with more pictures:

    http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showthread.php?p=2270973#post2270973

  5. nathan says:

    i call unto this reply section the wiki of all knowledge

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophoricity

    only really dangerous in finely divided amounts i hear

  6. Anonymous says:

    [IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c317/exodus125/fire%20pistons/firepistonlit.jpg[/IMG]

    http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c317/exodus125/fire%20pistons/firepistonlit.jpg

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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