Titanium EDM
Sourcing in Canada
Titanium goes into jet engines, airframes, and implants, the applications where the margin for error is zero, and Canada is unusually deep in exactly those fields. It runs the world's seventh-largest aerospace industry, top four globally in both aircraft and engines1, and its medical-device market is among the ten largest anywhere at close to ten billion dollars a year2. The demand that justifies titanium is already concentrated here, and so is the qualified supply.
The material rewards discipline. Grade 5 (Ti-6Al-4V) covers most structural and medical work, and titanium's low thermal conductivity and work-hardening punish an underbuilt process, which favors shops with rigid machines and real process control, frequently the same AS9100 and ISO 13485 facilities that serve those sectors.
Sources 1. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, State of Canada's Aerospace Industry·2. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Medical devices industry profile
Sourcing in the United States
Titanium is the sourcing case where the metal and the manufacturing part company. The United States produced no titanium sponge in 2025 and ran 100 percent net import reliant, bringing in an estimated 44,000 metric tons with a customs value of about $460 million; Japan supplied 73 percent of sponge imports through July1. Titanium also sits on the federal 2025 List of Critical Minerals, one of 60 minerals named2. What stays domestic is everything after the sponge: US ingot melting, mill products, and the machining that feeds an aerospace sector employing about 550,000 people3 and consuming the majority of American titanium metal1. For a buyer, that makes the sourcing question one of conversion and traceability, not the mine.
On the floor, Grade 5 (Ti-6Al-4V) covers most structural and aerospace work, Grade 23 ELI where medical and fracture-critical parts call for it, and commercially pure Grade 2 where corrosion resistance outranks strength. Titanium holds heat in the cutting zone instead of the chip, so shops run rigid fixturing, sharp carbide, high-pressure through-tool coolant, and conservative surface speeds at heavy feed. Cycle times run longer than aluminum and the quote reflects that. Anodizing and passivation are handled in the network, with mill certs and heat-lot traceability carried through when the print demands it.
Sources 1. USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Titanium and Titanium Dioxide (February 2026)·2. U.S. Geological Survey / Department of the Interior, Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals, 90 FR 50494 (November 7, 2025)·3. International Trade Administration (SelectUSA), Aerospace Industry: United States
What you can get made
- Finishing
- Anodizing, Laser Marking, Deburring, Polishing, Heat Treating, Sand Blasting, Painting, Plating
- Advanced equipment
- Wire EDM, 5-Axis Machining, CMM, Mill-Turn, Sinker EDM, Live Tooling
- Industries served
- Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Energy, Automotive, Electronics, Space, Marine
Good to know
- Grade 5 (Ti-6Al-4V) covers most structural and medical work; Grade 2 for corrosion-focused parts.
- Wire EDM holds very tight tolerances on hardened material and sharp internal corners.