Kiwis Custom Titanium

Success!

After much frustration, I have finally produced the first Barbell bar on my new lathe.

To see more about the struggle, check out my blog.
http://kiwiscustomti.co.uk/2023/06/07/success/

I plan on adding some more technical details on my processes and equipment for those interested in the near future. If I can figure out how to edit them, there may even be some video footage.

Stay safe out there

Kiwi

I have finally lit a fire under my backside and produced something beautiful, a pair of M&M bar ends with solid threads. For more info check out the blog and while you are there have a look around.

http://kiwiscustomti.co.uk/2023/05/21/some-progress-finally/

It's been a little while since I've updated, I've been working in the background buying equipment, getting it all set up and moving my workshop, I will add some posts later of a more technical nature for those who may be interested.

But for now, a show of progress. After some helpful feedback about the difficulty in sterilising jewellery with threaded inserts, I have been working on integral threads to ensure your customers safety.

Straight off the machine we have our first M&M with solid thread.

Kiwi

Hi all,

It's been a long time since I posted last, I'm still alive and kicking. If you want to understand why I took a break from everything, please see my blog post on my site

Log In ‹ Kiwis Custom Titanium — WordPress

It has been very busy and difficult last few months so I am sorry for being quiet on the update fronts.

I will put together some posts to let you all know what I have been up to after Christmas.

I am currently sat having breakfast in LA awaiting my flight home to New Zealand to visit my parents for Christmas.

Stay safe and merry Christmas.

New blog post on our process for prototyping curved bars and BCRs

see it here on the website

Curved Barbells | Kiwis Custom Titanium Curved Barbells Posted on October 17, 2022 by kiwi I have had a very busy weekend. A few weeks ago, I was approached by a customer asking about making curved bars. I currently do not have the equipment, but I said I would look into it when time permits, well this weekend time permitted. First, I spe...

Hard at work today, my bending experiments have born some fruit, there is a lot of development before I can go into production, here is a little sneak peak of what I've been up to. As a proof of concept I am pretty happy with it.

So I've been a bit busy the last few weeks, my latest engineering degree module started begining of October but I am going to get my hands dirty this weekend.

I have been asked to look into producing curved barbells, so this weekend I will be making some prototype bending equipment to check out the viability of bending bars once they are already cut to length, drilled and tapped.

Hopefully I will have some pictures of the results over the next few days.

Last Week at the UKAPP conference 5 lucky people won custom titanium barbells in the raffle, can the winners please contact the UKAPP to claim their prize. I am looking forward to making and introducing you to our quality jewellery.

A little update on what may be coming as a new product.

*Warning* the below post is about intimate piercing.

*Caution, Warnung, Whakatupato, Advarsel* I am not a proffesional piercer, anything I say or do is my opinion only . Please, always consult a qualified, competent, professional piercer before attempting any modifications to your piercing.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been experimenting with stretching piercings. As I understand this is normally an uncomfortable process, and I was rather sceptical at how my Apadravya, now a year old, would handle the upside.

I decided that half millimeter increments is the way to go. My piercing was initially done at 3.2mm at Rogue Piercing in Nottingham, a studio that I will not hesitate to reccomended for intimate piercing for their professionalism, service and skill. As it was such a tiny jump and my fistula was fairly loose on my bar, I decided I would just push the old bar out with a
One of my custom 3.5mm diameter bars.

Surprisingly, it slipped straight through with only the tiniest of twinges and a little bit of manoeuvring to push through the bottom fistula entrance which. I kept this in for a few weeks to allow any in noticed swelling to ease.

Next, I modified a 4mm stretching taper with threads at both ends, one at 4mm diameter, the other at 3.5mm. After a little polishing and cleaning, I connected one of my custom sized 4mm bars to the bigger end, removed the bar end from my 3.5mm bar and screwed it on to the taper assembly. I then added the bar end (after a good wash) to the end of the 4mm bar.

Now, I have my 4.5mm bar, taper and 4mm bar connected with bar ends on each ends. A little bit of antibacterial l**e and I slowly progressed the taper through my fistula.

On a scale of 1-10 for pain with an 8 being the initial apadravya piercing which has been the singular most painful moments of my life, with a close second being awarded to bisecting and inverting half of the meniscus in my right knee while climbing "Aviator" at Hay Tor in Dartmoor. I would say this was a 3, it was rather un comfortable but less than the time I forgot to tighten the balls on my bar and it fell out and I lost everything, it was 12 hours before I got home, made a new bar and found some ball ends. That was a good 6 on the scale.

Anyway, I digress. I was surprised at how little pain a half millimetre increase was, uncomfortable, sure, but I spent a few minutes, slowly pushing, holding easing off to the lubricate, push a little more. 2 minutes max and I was done and a new, sexy 4mm bar was in. A quick clean, detach everything and pop the bar end back on (I wear my half M&M bar ends , the low pressure on the fistula and the lovely sharp gleam the tighter radius gives pleases me greatly). I must admit I did spend a few moments admiring myself, even though it's only a half millimetre, the bar looks huge.

I love it!

Anyway, back on track, after the great success of half size increments I will be looking to develop a home stretching kit which will include the taper and the half size bar, compatible with any of my bar ends ,and with a large amount of other manufacturers bar ends if they use an M2 thread. No pricing at this moment but keep watching, If you have any suggestions or questions about this potential product, please leave a comment. Want the full taper instead? I want to know!

Kiwi

It has been a little while since I updated everything, It has been a busy few weeks and I have slowly been working on a few bits and pieces, Work, starting another Uni module on power generation and distribution (very apt in the current socio-economic climate I feel), trying to figure out how to use a DSLR and edit pictures and rebuilding a vintage bicycle and that is just to name a few. However…

There is a new product page here http://kiwiscustomti.co.uk/our-jewellery/ , It is still a work in progress and I hope to have some more products to add in the near future.

I have added a small page on how we make our jewellery http://kiwiscustomti.co.uk/how-we-do-it/ , Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments here about the content.

Finally, I have reorganized, refreshed and added some more information across the whole site, I do hope you all enjoy it. I will try to update more frequently in future, and if I can work it out, add some videos, so you can hear my delightful voice…

Come and visit the site, have a look, leave a comment or a question, I am always happy to help

How we do it. | Kiwis Custom Titanium How we do it. This is a brief peek into the process we go through to manufacture each bar end we manufacture. In this storyboard, we are making a Disc bar end, approximately 10mm wide and 3.2mm thick. Here we have Our trusty little lathe that we manufacture all our jewellery on. This Grayson lather....

The last post was maybe a little premature, there was still a lot of work to be done.

While undertaking quality assurance checks on the flat disc bar ends, I was not happy with the quality of the finish, so i re sanded and polished with no luck. The problem I was coming across was the surface appeared mirror like from most angles, when looked at from the right angle though, a light orange peel effect became apparent on the surface. I am not sure if this is an optical effect due to the flat surface or due to how the polishing buff material strikes the flat surface.

After consulting with my customer they agreed to a slight curve to be added to both surfaces, I re machined all the flat discs with curved faces, repolished them and bingo! The issue was gone. After cleaning, drying and more quality checks, I eventually had all 22 bar ends and 11 bars packaged and posted.

I am now playing a rather nervous waiting game, hoping that everything is to my client's liking.

It has been a busy few days here, We received our first order and have busy manufacturing 10 Bars, 10 5mm thick, 10mm M&Ms and 10 3.2mm thick, 10mm discs. This is our first time making a larger batch of jewellery, and we have learned a lot of new techniques and made a lot of mistakes along the way. One of the mistakes made is we are much too keen to polish everything, only to have to repeat the polishing at a later stage. We just cannot help it, they are just so pretty.

There is still a little work to be done, all the bar ends still need to be cleaned in our ultrasonic cleaner, we need to insert all the threads and package everything. We are really happy with how everything has been working out, but tonight it is time to relax, put our rather sore and tired feet up and enjoy the feeling of a job well done.

A slow but productive few days.

I received a new toy, an embosser, so I can personalize my packaging, I think it adds a bit of style to an otherwise boring glassine bag.

I have also been busy cleaning and tidying my little workshop, and while I was there I experimented and made a couple of new bar ends. These bar ends are a low profile half ball, measuring approximately 3.5mm in depth and 10mm wide.

I played around with technique for turning this part and have worked out some of the issues I discovered while making the first.

Kiwi

I received a very awesome delivery today, Titanium stock has now arrived!

This titanium has travelled a long way, milled in American by Perrymans, transported to Germany where it has been stored ready for me to buy it and get it shipped to the UK.

Later today I will be sending copies of all all my Mill certificates to the UKAPP and once accepted, I will become a verified manufacturer of titanium grade implants.

Kiwi

Hopeful news today,

A message from my supplier, the titanium is now in the UK from their German arm of the bussiness. Hopefully by the end of the week I will have my itchy little fingers on those sweet, sweet American milled, implant grade Titanium bars to make beautiful adornments for your awesome piercings!

After almost a year of planning and scheming I am almost ready to start making something just for you. I'm not ashamed to say I'm a little afraid, and a lot excited right now. 😊

Big day today!

Today we secured a new titanium supplier, 2-4 week lead time for delivery so we will hopefully be up, running, and filling orders by August.

We have also just bought our packaging supplies, all of which can be popped straight into your recycling bin or even in to your compost bin at home. Our thermal postage labels are completely phenol free, we are using brown card for all our boxes and protective packing and glassine paper with a custom twist to protect your jewellery in transit.

Kiwi

New toys!

While we have been contacting suppliers for titanium, I have been busy sorting out the less glamorous parts of the business.

Kiwis Custom Ti is now the proud owner of a well-used Citizen thermal printer for our postage labels, I was very excited reading about phenol free compostable thermal labels, and got a little carried away.

On another note, we now have business cards, aren't they pretty? That makes us a real business, right? I hope so, we may not have any stock, but I have pretty cards to hand out to anyone not quick enough to run away. You have been warned.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Kiwi

After feed back from the pros at Rogue Piercing, we have purchased some new polishing supplies, including some new soft mops and a few different "super finish" polishing compounds to try out. The initial results are excellent, the finish has been given a real depth of shine which makes them look even more fantastic.

We are still looking for a material supplier, The material is very difficult to source in the UK and even more difficult to source from a UKAPP compliant source. We do have a promising contact who hopefully will bring us some good news soon, so hopefully you will start seeing pictures of our jewellery in production soon

Kiwi

It has been a trying week this week

The good news

The staff at Rogue Piercing had some very positive feedback for us on our sample piece we sent them, they loved our designs and gave us some great feedback.

We also got some great feedback from them for where we can Improve. All but one of these issues will be able to be addressed in house with minor process changes and we will be looking into workable solutions to surpass the industry standards and make your jewellery the quality you deserve

The bad news

Unfortunately this issue is going to set us back a little.
In contravention to the documentation standards the material was claimed to comply with, our material supplier has been unable to issue the required mill certificates for the material we used for our samples.

This is a big issue, to prove we comply with the UKAPP material specifications for Titanium alloys, we must be able to supply a mill certificate for each batch of material we use in our Jewellery. These are to prove the material meets the strict requirements for implant grade material and therefore your safety.

We are working on finding a more reliable supplier and have high hopes we will be back in bussiness soon.

Kiwi

Todays been a busy day, I had a pile of washing up and cleaning to do, but i ignored it all and have decided to have a play with creating a half ball and playing with relief on the back.

So I ground up a tool and started to play. After a few false starts I had a pretty good shape to my profile tool which gave me a good looking half ball.

At the same time i decided to try relieving the back of the bar end, allowing a slighly tighter fit without putting too much pressure on the fistula openings. Take a look and see what you think.

I have some issues to over come, polishing inside the relief is inconsistent and difficult, and the technique is not suitable for thinner designs, This bar end measures approximately 4.5mm from top to bottom edge which is about the minimum thickness to still achieve the minimum amount of threads

The first of what will hopefully be many.

A Sample barbell due to be sent to Kat and the gang at Rogue Piercing for them to critique.

These beauties are made from medical grade Ti-6Al-4V ASTM F136 compliant titanium , there is a 32mm long internally threaded,3.2mm bar, a flat 3.2mm bar end and a low profile 3.2mm M&M end.

Manually machined and hand finished hand finished, it takes over an hour just to smooth and polish these, so I hope the guys will love these as much as I do.

1/3 profile (thickness is 1/3 diameter), 10mm M&M bar end, M2 roll formed thread for extra strength, grade 23 (TI-6AL-4V) ASTM F136 Titanium.