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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Re Re: Dream Choice of Sextant
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2005 Aug 12, 18:24 -0400
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2005 Aug 12, 18:24 -0400
Alex- I'm not suggesting a titanium frame would be better. I suspect that it would be stiffer and MUCH lighter compared to either aluminum or brass. I have no idea about thermal properties. It would also be corrosion resistant and salt, etc., should not be able to wear any gear teeth in it. I suppose you could work it practically by using waterjet or laser cutting on a titanium plate (instead of casting it--I have no idea if you can feasibly cast titanium) but I'm told a typical foot square titanium alloy plate 1/4" thick is worth about $400 as sheet metal. Surely, that would put it in the Nieman-Marcus catalog. Even without engine-turning, anodizing, and bejeweling. I can just see them on eBay now: "RARE FABREGE SEXTANT!"If anyone wants to build their own sextant frame of titanium, there's an online machine shop at http://www.emachineshop.com that will give you free CAD software and then actually machine the parts from your drawing and ship them to you. Not cheap--but an unusual resource. Includes cost estimates on each job, so you can actually see what "just" using something like Titanium plate instead of bronze would cost you.
