Okay... here's the photos of my Voodoo Ti shift knob, after the Plumber's Torch, and Self-Cleaning Oven treatments.

As you can see here, the Plumber's torch was hot enough to achieve the desired colors, but only in a very concentrated area.


The Self-Cleaning Oven treatment was only hot enough to create an nice even bronze color to the knob. This is okay, since finding a way to increase the heat will change this color to the Blue/Purple I am searching for.




My next attempt:

TEST Method 3 - "Heat Gun & Brick Enclosure"

I plan on obtaining a high quality Heat Gun, such as the Milwakee or Makita models.
These quality heat guns can achieve temperatures of 1100+ degrees.
In addition to the heat gun, I plan on constructing a simple "oven" encolsure made with bricks. This will allow me to insulate the titanium shift knob within this enclosure, and prevent heat from escaping into the atmosphere.
Also, I believe using the heat gun will give me the desired effect of having one color fade into another (blue fade into purple) since the heat source will be at one end of the knob.


To be honest, the glossy, shiny appearance of the shift knob at the beginning of this thread must have been created using the Electrolysis Anodization technique.
The heat method does not seem to create such a glossy finish (so far).



More to come.....

 

i cant wait to do it once you guys figure out a concrete way to do it lol

 

heres mine done half ass. been too lazy to get rid of the swirls. used a mapp gas torch, constant heat for about 10 minutes and viola!! hahah

 

propane torch + some kind of rotating thingamajig?

 

Results: TEST Method 3 - "Heat Gun & Brick Enclosure"

So last night I finally purchased a high quality Heat Gun, in the form of a Milwakee Digital 3300.
The heat gun was capable of achieving temperatures of 1350 degrees.

Using a thick-gauge aluminum foil I purchased at COSCO, I created a sort of crib for the shift knob. This kept the shift knob off the ground, and sligthly elevated.
As such I was able to avoid scratching the knob.

In addition, I purchased several paving bricks and formed a rectangular enclosure.
As I began to heat the "oven," I realized that a good deal of heat was escaping through the gaps and spaces inevitably found in between the bricks.
Half-way through the heating process I wrapped the entire enclosure in the same thick-gauge aluminum. That's when I began to notice a significant change in the colors on the knob.

Rather than explaining... see below for pics!

Powerful Heat Gun, found in the Paint section of Home Depot.


Brick enclosure, aluminum foil bed, and Ti knob in place.


Phase 1 of enclosure... way too many gaps where heat was escaping. Noticed no change.


Phase 2 of enclosure... wrapped in foil, with additional bricks/stones to hold it all together tightly.


Burn baby, burn!


The results:






It was very hard to get an even coloring around the entire knob. The next time around, I would lower the heat just a tad (the base of the knob was overheated, taking-on a grey/black coloring).

Enjoy!

 

Man, dthondatune, you are on a mission. Nice work.

 

i put mine in the oven on the self clean for 3 hours....turned blue...looks ok, but the whole knob is blue now

 

You're on to something there.

 

i've been surfing yahoo auctions in japan lookin for shift knobs when i came across this gem:

http://page6.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f56162066

$202 usd!

 

UPDATE:

I used some steel wool, for about 2 minutes, on the base of the knob.. where it looked kinda "burned."
The black/charcoal color was removed and that part of the knob it back to it's natural Silver-Titanium color

So, it's confirmed that polishing the knob will remove the coloring and return it to it's original state. Gotta love titanium.