I cannot speak for American Tackle Tich or Fuji Tich but I do know that Forecast has a really good line of Titanium plated guides that I have been using for a while now. As far as harness goes they are not as hard as the Sic guides but very close. On the Vickers Hardness Scale they rate as follows.

Sic about 2150
Titanium Zirconium about 1600
Hard Rings about 1300



They use the PVD process to coat there frames and rings.

They offer Tich coated frames with Blue Rings (Titanium Oxide), Gold Rings (Titanium Nitrate), and Bright Gray Rings (Titanium Hydrogenation). They also offer a black frame with the blue Titanium Oxide rings.

During the PVD process, ceramic zirconia ingot material is melted by an Electron Beam in a high vacuum chamber. At temperatures exceeding 3000 °C (5500 °F), the zirconia evaporates and a coating adheres to the component surface through subsequent condensation. The zirconia ingot is a special zirconia type developed for thermal barrier applications at high temperatures which is sintered to a rod shape for automatic feeding during the process.

All in all a great guide. You can find them "Rainshadow/Forceast" on the left in the sponsor list.

Hope this helps. I am sure the principles are the same.

David,

These new guides are not titanium plated, they are solid titanium alloy. The plated ones peel and rust, the solid ones do not.

The word "alloy" send up a warning flag to me.
5% titanium would be enough to call it Titanium Alloy yet most consumers will think they're purchasing solid titanium.

How much titanium is in these frames? How about the Fuji's?

Also, so as to compare apples to apples, what are the differences between the Fuji Gold Cermet ring and the Nanolite ring?

The ones I use do not peal and rust. The frames are Stainless as well. I have never had a problem with them. Personal prference I guess. I will stick with what works :o) and works well with quality.

Apple to Apple??? Who ever compared them in any way to Gold Cermet?? Apple to Apple would be more like comparing to Alconite

Mike

I believe a similar discussion happened ?last year? - at that time Joe Meehan was the only supplier / sponsor who provided what could be considered a 'full disclosure' along with independent laboratory tests (at least as I recall) for the American Tackle guides (zirconium rings). What I think turned out as the 'bottom line' was that independent testing - submitting alconite, zirconium, cermet, SIC etc for evaluation to a lab would be the only true benchmark. The secondary conclusions were similar to what has been posted above: If you and your customers are happy with what you are currently using you can choose to try new or not.

Obviously, I haven't seen them yet, but with AMTAK's track record, you can bet I will as soon as I can get my hands on them!!

Mike

David,
I am fairly sure that a vapor deposition process involves a very strong electro-static field that pulls atoms of titanium off by secondary emission not by melting with an electron beam. This is a new process to the guide manufacturers but it has been used in the semiconductor and hybrid circuit industry for many years.

Not even Fuji makes guide frames from 100% titanium material. It would be nearly impossible to do so and would result in a guide frame that would be quite poor with regard to many of the qualities we desire.

.............

Bang on target. Pure titanium really is a beast to produce, form, machine, etc. Almost every strcutural metal these days is an alloy. What do you think stainless steel is? And why does "alloy" send up a warning flag.

I'm warming to this stuff. I think it'll especially appeal to fellas who don't wash regularly (hahahahahahah!!). I'd love to see them. And also bring them out in fly guides and tops too.

With regards to halide being plenty hard enough for 99% of uses, Mr. Meehan, how come there are no fly guides in the hard chrome/halide rign finish combination? Ditto fly tops. Your guide size/tube size combinations also leave a lot to be desired. Particularly the smaller tube sizes. How about light spin style tops? Fuji, Pac bay and Forecast all make these. They are lighter than normal tops, and more tangle free than ordinary ceramic fly tops when used with spin gear and light line.

I was just going to say and you beat me to it that all titanium alloys are not the same. In the eyeglass frame industry, you can have very significant differences between various titanium frames depending how much nickle and other materials are used in the alloy.