It would be really funny if Cooper's bomb was made from skydiver flares

So, is the Ti you found pure Ti, Ti oxide, or Ti sponge?
We found Ti, and oxide no sponge.

I don't understand why both Ti and Ti sponge are discussed, and also why not other Ti compounds?
Because the leaf spring particle was pure and sponge is pure Ti.  Ti oxides are basically useless to investigate.

I really don't understand why you analyzed Ti sponge from RMI
Because it was a source of pure Ti upstream from the alloying process.

Titanium sponge is created by applying what is known as the "Kroll process" to Rutile mineral, where the mineral is treated with a chloride compound.
Your research is limited, there is also the rarer Hunter Process which produces purer Ti at higher expense. Only RMI used that process and its main components were chlorine and sodium. There was a lot of chlorine and sodium on the tie.  (yes we ruled out table salt)

Titanium Sponge is the product resulting from the application of the Kroll process on raw titanium ore. Depending on the application of this process, differing purities of titanium sponge can be obtained. The resulting impurities in the sponge usually include iron, chloride, magnesium, silicon, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
Again look up Hunter Process it makes better Ti. In any case our instruments only detect down to about 1% so there could be a ton of impurities below that we would not see.

I am very happy you all are looking closely at the tie particles. It is the lead with the most potential to actually solve the case.

There is a lot going around that needs clarification.

The posts claim the most recent data from McCrone is somehow all mine and it is my analysis being presented. The excel spreadsheets are EXACTLY what came to us from McCrone, everything in them is theirs not mine. The use of "rich" is their language presumably given in these cases to simplify things for law enforcement
Just looking at the "rich" summations will not get you very far. One has to dive into the depths of the data to find the primary, secondary, 3rd and 4th elements.
Y is not found as a primary element and will not show up in the summations. It is however found in the 2-4 columns in surprising frequency. Any assumptions that an element is not present because it is not summarized is a bad analysis.
I agree there are lots of places like road flairs and lighter flints that can pick up strange elements. It is up to the researcher though to go into the element listings and find related elements. If one thinks road flair dust is on the tie then there should be nitrogen particles on it.  We didn't find any but our search was not exhaustive, someone here might come up with a winner.
Of course we, like everyone here, thought the Ti was from titanium dioxide. We purchased the powder to compare under the SEM but it looked different than the particles. We now SUSPECT that the burnt match head particles might have created low oxygen Ti crumbs. This does not however explain the leaf spring particle which is not burn residue and is the best example of Ti on the tie. The SEM beam penetrates into the sample through the fine oxidation layer on the leaf spring particle to get the underlying composition. 
We also thought the Ti was from sponge manufacturing process specifically from RMI in Ohio. We incredibly obtained Ti sponge samples FROM RMI FROM THAT TIME PERIOD but none of the sponge particles shapes matched anything on Coopers tie.
Strangely we did not find any other examples of pure Ti in the McCrone listings.
Strangely there is a lot of stainless steel on the tie but almost no regular steel if he was in a machine shop environment.
Of course there is a lot of day to day crap on the tie. We recognized this early on and if you look at our original family tree of particles, you will see a section devoted to "Sand".
We did obtain a tie from Boeing, from the correct time period, from an engineer that worked there in the early 70's. He thought for sure there would be certain elements on his tie that would match Coopers if he worked there. Our analysis although not extensive, did not find any matching particles between the two ties. 
The McCrone data is a lot to go through in detail WHICH WE DID NOT. We put it on line to crowd source the analysis but it has been largely ignored up to now. I hope this post clarifies things and you all move on to a proper analysis and find some great stuff.

So at the moment we feel the best potential is in the Tektronix connection. This could be struck down in a heartbeat if it was found that they did not produce any color screens in the early 70's. I hope someone here can find that out.

In the last 10 years most of our conclusions have changed in response to new data. I expect a lot of them will change again in the next decade. If you want to hold me responsible for all of those claims fine but you are not much of a scientist if you don't change your conclusions in the face of new data.

Tom Kaye

Snow, you coming to the conference? I'd love to see a dialogue between you and Tom on this subject. I agree with TK that the tie and its particles are currently the hotsiest-totsiest clue going. Not to give short drift to the money, but that subject is so soggy...

For Snow,

Our instruments read through the oxide layer. The SEM electron beam penetrates the sample according to the electron volts the beam is set at. To determine if it has an oxide layer over pure, you turn up the voltage so it penetrates deeper. If it is a pure oxide the ratio of O to Ti stays the same, if it is only a coating then the Ti goes up in proportion.