Ive been making folding knives from 6al-4v titanium (the handles) and i want to learn everything i can about how to best handle the material. I havent had any major problems, but theres a few things i would like to address. First of all is the grain direction of titanium sheets. I cant find much info on what effect this has on the final parts and the machining other than just a general claim that it has better strength along grain direction. Is there anywhere i would find actual numbers on the difference in properties when comparing with grain and against grain? If its only a few percent difference, it would be much more convenient for me to not always orient parts lengthwise with grain. sometimes things would fit better the other way.
My next area of curiosity is dealing with warping of parts. my parts have pockets in one face only which causes uneven removal of stress which almost always leads to the part curling up toward the pocketed face. I know that i can rough, then refixture allowing it to bow before finishing, but im wondering if theres any other way to deal with this issue. Maybe grain direction has an affect on how sensitive it is to this bowing from material removal?
I have a lot of other questions about processing titanium but just dont know where to find the info. Is there maybe any good books on the subject?