At Vaperfexion, we only purchase and use ASTM Certified Commercially Pure Grade 2 Western Titanium Bar stock to make our Titanium Drip-Tips and
tank Caps from. All products are made in house by us. Not overseas and rebranded as our own. This is important because there are large differences in Titanium products. Most you can't see.
There is Western Titanium, that which is produced and graded for the US market. It is highly regulated, graded by federal inspectors and each bar is given an ASTM certification number that is stamped on the bar and also listed on a bill of lading. The certification shows the ASTM Grade, the tested chemical composition of random samples from that lot and also the MSDS safety data of that product and what general purposes it can be used for. Nothing is left to chance. We also do Military contracting, who require a copy of this paperwork for every material that we put into their products.
Commercially Pure
Western Titanium carries the Grades 1 through 4. Grade 1 is extremely soft, almost gummy and mostly used for dental and medical applications. Grade 2 is considered the workhorse of the pure Ti grades. Amazing strength and lightweight, but pricey. Grades 3 and 4 are even stronger, but have characteristics not ideal for consumer products.
Alloyed Western Titanium carries the grades 5-23. The most common alloy seen in
vaping is Grade 5 aka Ti 6Al-4V. This is the mostly used form of Ti in the world. While Grade 5 is an alloy and not a commercially pure Ti, it binds the aluminum and vanadium alloys very effectively into the Titanium ore in such a way that the final product is 95% inert. Not perfect for
vaping purposes, since Grade 2 Ti and even T316 Stainless Steel are 100% inert. This is why we have chosen Grade 2 Pure Ti vs Grade 5 Alloy in our products.
Then there is
Eastern Titanium...Titanium that is made and manufactured in either China or Russia. These use a different rating scale than Western Titanium and have entirely different chemical compositions. Eastern Titanium has no "Pure" grades. All of the grades are "alloys". Alloy is just a fancy word telling you that they added other metals and ingredients into the base Titanium. If cigarettes were metals then they would be considered a Tobacco Alloy! All it means is that other chemicals and processes were joined to the original product.
Eastern Titanium actually contains less than 10% of pure Titanium and fills the rest with Aluminum, vanadium, Molybdium, cobalt, nickel and a few more really unpronouncable metals that I wouldn't touch with my bare hands , let alone use it near my mouth.
You would never use a raw aluminum drip-tip. and you would think twice before touching any product with those metals and chemicals in them, so why do people buy them? Because they are marketed as Titanium and they are priced at a fraction of true commercially pure Grade 2 or even Grade 3 Western Titanium. I had a chinese wholesaler send me some Ti Drip-Tip samples recently. They cost me $2.00 each! So I took the said $2 "Titanium Drip-Tip" to my Cooperative Extension for testing. It was $75 well spent. The list of ingredients reminded me why I quit cigarettes in the first place! The list of chemicals and metals were astounding, but it was 70% raw aluminum. It contained .015% of true Titanium and the rest of the ingredients were as scary as I have seen in tobacco cigarettes. The bigger problem was that the product only had a 50% level of inertness in vinegar. In other words the metals and chemicals from that drip-tip easily could leech into your juice or into your mouth. When I mentioned that our materials have a 100% inert level earlier, that is why it is so important.
My point is simple.
Be responsible to yourself. Know what you are buying and from where, and demand accountability from your vendors.
