Claw material

[mattsdragons]

Undecided if I should go for 3mm Ti and have some strengthening pieces in there to save weight or go for 4mm hardox with a very basic framework, opinions?

[overkill]

It depends on the design and how likely it will be hit by spinners - do you have a drawing to share?. Titanium is roughly 1.74 times lighter than steel, so anything thinner than 6.9mm titanium will save weight; I'd go 5mm at least.

[maddox10]

It's mainly budget.
Good design and the right kind of low alloy steel (SSAB has a few types that are useable) can do the job without robbing the bank.

Of course, good design and going expensive in materials can be more succesfull.

Unfortunatly, can doesn't mean will.

[mattsdragons]

Those are 2 materials I have enough of to make the claw already, the rough idea is a framework with a thick section at the end to be sharpened into a tip

[maddox10]

How good can you work both metals?
If you have to rely on others, it can get annoying or expensive.

[craig_colliass]

If it is for a HW robot I would go for as strong as you can.

On Cherub the lifting forks were 8mm thick, High grade steel as used on nuclear submarine hulls ................It bent! the second set were made of 10mm steel the foundry didn't tell me what the steel type was but I couldn't drill it with anything I had. and it only bent when heated up first then put in a large hydraulic press.

They didn't bend in combat but the 30mm solid steel shaft they were connected to did!