Mythbusting
Titanium is magic
Titanium 
really is a wonderful metal, and although it is extremely difficult to work with, it is strong and light. It’s best used in applications where it can be triangulated (like in a bike) or otherwise reinforced with cross-bracing. The reason that things that are made out of titanium can be made so light is because of a process called ‘butting’ the tube shapes, when the tubes are manufactured (usually by extruding them), the walls of the tubes are not made to a uniform thickness. The tubes are made to be thicker on the ends (where the welds will be), and thinner in the middle where the diameter of the tube provides the structural integrity and strength because of the unique properties of titanium.
The reason that the bike companies can do this is because they know exactly what length of tube they’re going to be using in every size of bike that they build. Bikes come in a range of sizes, with built in adjustability within a range (like a certain wheelchair that we’re particularly proud of!), and so the manufacturers can predict the lengths and the amount of tubing that they’ll be using.
Butting the tubing decreases the weight of the tube by up to 70% while keeping 90% of the strength it would have if it were only one thickness throughout. The ability to butt the tubing is really the only reason that titanium has any real advantage over aluminum or steel.
The custom wheelchair manufacturers don’t have that same luxury, every chair they build is different, and every chair requires up to 14 unique measurements, so the manufacturers literally don’t know until they get an order where they’re going to be cutting each tube. This means that they can’t use the material to its best advantage.
Every custom and made to measure titanium chair on the market currently uses single-wall thickness tubing, the nature of the way wheelchairs are bought and made makes it impossible to do otherwise.
