Titanium nitride deposited by physical vapor deposition — a 1–5 µm gold-yellow ceramic film that's harder than the underlying tool steel. Twice as gold as gold plate, never wears off, doesn't tarnish. The gold finish on cutting tools, watch cases, plumbing fixtures, eyeglass frames. Looks plated, behaves like a ceramic.
Cathodic-arc or magnetron-sputter deposition of titanium nitride (TiN) onto a substrate held at 200–500 °C in a vacuum chamber backfilled with N₂. Film thickness 1–5 µm, hardness 2000–2500 HV (vs. ~600 HV for hardened tool steel), color characteristic gold-yellow. Adhesion driven by ion bombardment etch of the substrate before deposition; the film is the substrate, atomically. Color is from the band-gap of TiN (~2.3 eV); slight variation with N stoichiometry (TiN₀.₉ leans copper, TiN₁.₁ leans pale gold). Common decorative target for tools, jewelry, plumbing; functional target for cutting tools where the hardness extends life 3–5×.
character — warm gold-yellow, hard ceramic surface, doesn't tarnish, doesn't wear, smooth as the substrate.
ASTM B488 / B456 / B689 plating standards; Powder Coating Institute and industry-association literature.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
Half of teaching materials is teaching how the material is made into the thing. The standard subscription library was always light on that half. The wedge here isn't better samples or a prettier interface — it's treating Process as a peer entity, not a footnote.
Conway, Lefteri, Forty, Sparke, ASM, GIA. Every voice: Voices.
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