HillRider

Yes Ti requires a skilled welder and proper inert gas shielding of the welds. It is not prone to fatigue cracking if designed properly so the stresses are below a threshold value. In this regard it is similar to steel in that it's fatigue life can be infinite. Aluminum does not share this characteristic.

DannoXYZ 

One of the major causes of high Ti prices in the U.S. was hoarding by the military-industrial complex. And any that was available was surplus or 2nd from military vendors. Meaning the thing had to go through stringent testing and quality-controls that were absolutely not necessary for a consumer product (but the testing-costs were passed on anyway). That for the most part ended in the '90s and many defence contractors went into building custom high-end bikes. Back then, the cost of Ti bikes and parts were easily 6-20x what steel ones were. Now they're not that extreme.

Heck, in Russia, titanium-ore is so plentiful, I was able to walk into a corner hardware-store and by titanium shovels and hammers!!!

HillRider

Titanium is the 9th most abundant element on earth so scarcity has nothing to do with its high cost. The difficulty (and expense) is in getting the elemental metalic form from the ore and the further difficulty shaping and forming the final metal.

ultraman6970

Ti is hard to work with thats why is expensive... I agree...

DannoXYZ 

That's only one portion of the cost. Doesn't explain why the price of Ti consumer-goods have dropped to 1/5th of what it used to be decades ago. Especially with the exponential rise in the oil & electricy that runs the mills and welders. You have to consider all the steps along the way and the final-steps are typically what makes up the majority of the retail-costs, not the initial ones.

Also doesn't explain why Russian Ti has not changed much in pricing in the past 20-years, while the U.S. has dropped by significant amounts.

I worked on a project for Vandenberg once where my company provided them with a 4-legged natural-material picnic table and 2 bench-seats for an observation area overlooking one of the launch-pads. What started out as several $200 sets of tables from OSH was finally delivered for $14,000 with minimal profit-margin.