What to do with Titanium scrap?

[JRD]

One of my dad's friends heard we cast bullets and said he had some "lead" for him. He gave my dad a modest sized carboard box of this "lead" which my dad showed to me. To have friends who want to give you lead is a great thing that all boolit casters would appreciate.

However, as soon as I picked a piece up I knew it wasn't lead. After some research I've confirmed its titanium, more specifically a titanium-aluminum-vanadium alloy. I believe the box is composed of runners, gate remnants, and rejected castings of medical implants. My dads friend is involved in junk cleanouts so perhaps these were left in an office that he cleaned out or something along those lines. It was cool to look at and figure out what it was, but now that the interesting time is over, what do I do with it?

I'm certainly not going to melt any titanium into bullets. (3000F is hotter than our RCBS ProMelt goes...) It's in all irregular shapes and blobs so it wouldn't be useful to anyone to use as machining stock.
For any of the scrap yard regulars on the board, do scrap yards buy titanium alloy? If so, where can I find the going rate of Ti scrap? I'm only dealing with a few pounds worth so it's probably not a huge return to try selling it.

Thanks for any advice.

[bangerjim]

scrap yard.......try and sell it....they usually will by anything. Tell them what you think it is and can verify with their XFR gun.

[Misery-Whip]

Yup trade it for real lead at the scrap yard. Or sell it on ebay, someone may want to cast something out of it.

[Rickf1985]

https://rockawayrecycling.com/metal/titanium/ Not as much as I thought. Hell, I figured I would be worth a fortune in scrap once I died and someone scavenged all the joints and rods and pins from me!

[JRD]

I had a sample piece verified by an XRF at work. I'm certain its Ti-Al-V alloy.

Rick, Thank you for the link. I thought titanium would be worth more based on how expensive it is to buy. It's hardly worth the ride to the scrap yard for a small amount. You mention the Titanium parts in you. Honest to God, when I first looked into the box and recognized some of the parts as implants, my thought was I hope these didn't come from a crematorium. They didn't though. They are all clean and as cast or partially machined and must be production scrap and casting remnants.

[Winger Ed.]

I thought titanium would be worth more based on how expensive it is to buy. .

I think its expensive to buy finished products made from it because it difficult to machine and work compared to other metals.

[Nobade]

If there are big enough chunks maybe you can make something interesting out of them at some point.

[M-Tecs]

In the 90's scrape Ti was selling for $28 a pound. Today it hardly worth anything.

[AndyC]

If there are big enough chunks maybe you can make something interesting out of them at some point.

Yeah - build an SR-72, man!

[JSnover]

In the 90's scrape Ti was selling for $28 a pound. Today it hardly worth anything.

I remember those days. The guy that used to come by for our Ti-Al-V scrap was always happy to see it but we didn't produce more than 3-4 pounds of scrap per month. I heard the titanium production methods had improved since then, reducing the cost of new Ti and most likely driving the scrap value way down.

[Nobade]

Back in the late 90's I was making titanium body jewelry on four swiss screw machines. The chips were well worth cleaning and selling then. Guess that's not the case any more for some reason.