Steel vs Titanium

Have you ever wondered why we make safes out of steel? Why don’t we use titanium? Let's talk about this.

Steel is everywhere. You’ll find steel in some alloy form or another in just about anything. It is the most commonly used metal in the world with almost 2 billion tons manufactured every year.

Steel is also very easy to work with. It is incredibly strong yet easy to bend and shape, it’s one of the easiest metals to weld with, and since humanity has been using steel for almost 4,000 years, it’s pretty safe to say we know what we’re doing with it.

Titanium, on the other hand, was officially discovered in 1791, but it took an additional 119 years before pure titanium could be produced.

Although titanium is “younger” than steel, humanity has made great use of it. Titanium is used in jewelry, surgical tools, prosthetics, bicycle frames, and many other high-performance products.

Titanium alloys are considered just as strong as steel but they only weigh half as much, they are naturally resistant to rust, and they have a much higher tolerance to heat.

So why not build a safe out of titanium?

Even though titanium is the 9th most abundant element in the earth’s crust, it is still considered rare. The process to manufacture titanium is longer and more intensive than steel. This increases its price. I’ll talk about that more in a minute.

When it comes to working with titanium, due to its high tolerance to heat, welding becomes very difficult. It’s not impossible but it requires more heat and energy to achieve a proper weld. This means a standard welder will need additional or special training on how to work with titanium.

Titanium is 45% lighter than steel. In the realm of tools and prosthetics, that’s a great thing. But in the world of safes, not so much. For example, Liberty Safe’s Presidential 50 uses about 1,000 pounds of steel. If we made this safe out of titanium, then only 550 pounds of titanium will be used. It doesn’t sound like much but that’s almost 500 pounds less than a thief has to worry about knocking your safe over.

Some people might be okay with having a safe that’s a little lighter. But here’s where it’s going to hit the hardest. To build a safe the size of the Presidential 50 out of titanium, it’ll cost $16,500 for the titanium alone. Adding in the cost of labor and training it’ll take to build your titanium safe, it’s going to cost you over $22,000.

Maybe one day it would be cost-effective to build safes out of titanium but probably not in the near future.

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