El Tiempo wrote:Joe, the obvious play here is to sell all your other titanium watches and get the CW.

You might be right!

I am glad to see Chris is going with an automatic movement on this one versus the Unitas 6497. But, I wonder which automatic movement? I would love to see something with a power reserve indicator!!!

I think, the combination of a Diver's watch with 300 M, automatic movement and Titanium for 250 Pounds is definitely something for me.

I don't have any diver's watch, but I think this one will be my first.
(Surely waiting for the finally design to make my decision).

Why do you think, that stainless steel would be the better decision? Are there any arguments against titanium, besides that one that joerattz still has three titanium watches ?

By the way, a quarz movement would be no possible opportunity for me.

Nico

I just had a look aroung the web at various titanium watches and liked what I saw. It looks as though you can give it about any appearance you want.
After thinking about it for awhile, I think it's a great choice for the watch. The light weight material will offset the size if it comes in as big as mentioned. I hope a solid link titanium bracelet and a rubber strap will be offered.

What I really hope is I'll like what it looks like.

I just took a look at my Citizen watch that is titanium. Here is a link to the watch at a site:

http://www.ewatches.com/Citizen/JR4010-51L.html#

On that watch, the horizontal surfaces are the typical grayish titanium look. By horizontal, I mean if the watch were laying flat on a table. The vertical surfaces are polished and resemble stainless steel.

As far as what I know, titanium is technically superior in every way. It is significantly lighter, significantly stronger, and more corrosion resistant. That's why I have 3 titanium watches. It is the "smarter" material.

But, I gave up on the "technically superior and smarter" philosophy once I turned my back on quartz in favor of mechanical. In those aspects, that Citizen is a superior watch to probably anything Patek Phillipe even makes. The Citizen is quartz, so the accuracy is superior to any mechanical, and it is an Eco-Drive, which is an awesome technology.

That Citizen has become my timekeeping standard for my watches. It is the one I set all my automatics by when they run down. Having the CW Malvern, CW Aviator, and an Orange Monster, I love them all and can't keep them all wound. Even my Seiko Kinetic, one of my other titanium watches, can't hold a candle to the Eco-Drive in terms of storage capacity and ease of charge. I wear that Citizen maybe once every 6 months, and it just keeps on going. I read on another watch site that it only takes 2-3 hours of full sunlight to fully charge it, which for mine I believe it has about a 4 year capacity. Two to three hours for 4 years of power! What can match that? And, maybe the watch doesn't quite live up to those specs, but I can tell you that it sits in my closet, which is dark for probably 23:55 of every 24 hours, and has been running for over 2 years, and since I bought my CW Malvern in January 2006, the Citizen has only been worn two or three times! And, if I get concerned it may be low on charge, all I have to do is set it in the window...or somewhere in the house that gets sunlight. That is a superior technology!!! I know, this is certainly starting to sound like an ad for Citizen. But, as I said, I have only worn it a handful of times since I got my CW.

Now contrast all that superior technology to my Seiko Orange Monster. It is an automatic, so accuracy is significantly less. It is stainless steel, so the metal is inferior to the Citizen. You can't hand wind that movement, so to wind it, you have to actually wear it. But, I guarantee you that if you hand the two watches to someone that doesn't know the specs, they are going to be more impressed with the monster. Why? Because it weighs a ton. It is a behemoth. Because of the weight, it feels solid. The titanium Citizen on the other hand feels a little flimsy despite the fact that it probably has 4 times the strength to weight ratio.

And, even though I know the reality of which is the superior metal, I too love the feel of the heft of the monster. That is why I prefer stainless steel. It's not just because I already have 3 titanium watches, its because I prefer stainless steel...despite its inferiority. Just like I have said I don't see me buying any more quartz watches...despite their superior timekeeping ability.

All that said, I love the watches Chris makes. Even the ones I don't initially like, someone will buy and post some pictures of, and I'll think hmmm, it didn't look that good at the CW site. Maybe ...

As an engineering student with interests in mechanical materials I must say, that I ever would favour titan (to build a diver's watch ) than stainless steel because of its great attributes:

- leightweight
- solid
- ductile
- corrosion-resistant

It ist the perfect material for applications with requirements concerning corrosion-resistance, solidity and as little weight as possible.

I think a diver watch is one application with these requirements....

Nico

Nico is right,
Not got a titanium watch up to now but have been looking on wikipedia and read about titanium.

Would appear it is as strong as steel with 45% less weight and has excellent resistance to both chlorine and salt so i guess Chris has got it just about right for a divers watch.

How about one of those votes i've seen on here and see what people think.

Rick

Here is an interesting post about stainless steel versus titanium:

http://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t= ... 1942&rid=0

I forgot about the fact that titanium tends to bond to itself, which is a negative towards it.

I also failed to mention in one of my other posts, where I discussed why I didn't want any more titanium watches, that one reason I don't think I want any more titanium watches is that I (at one time) felt like it scratched easier than stainless steel. I am not quite sure I still feel that way. I'll have to look at my bracelets a little closer next time I get a chance. I know the clasps on my titaniums got serious desk swirlies on them.

In that post above, the writer mentions that there are different grades of titanium. I have no idea what grade my titanium watches are. So, it is possible that they are a lower grade, and perhaps a higher grade wouldn't have scratched as badly.

Still, there is no getting around the weight difference. Of course, this is a preference for the most part.

I was in a swiss watch shop only this week and they had bought an Omega Seamaster Chrono Titanium in from a seller.

I notice that the whole watch was covered in tiny scratchs,not sure if this is normal or if the watch had just had a very hard life but it didnt look to pretty.

Not sure if you can buff it back to look like new,i hope so
Rick

I have a Titanium Revue Thommen, it took me a bit of time to get used to it but it wears very comfortable, and I really like it now!

And a countdown bezel too! Nice piece Hans.

How easy the watch will or won't scratch will likely depend on how it's finished.

Seems like the style of the watch is changing. I wonder what prompted the move from manual to automatic?

I do not know why Chris changed from the manual to the automatic movement, but I think it is the better choice.

By the way:
I read something about titanium watches on the internet and all I can say is that it made me thoughtful. Many owners of titanium watches have made the experience that the titanium watches scratches even faster than the steel watches. After some time of wearing the titanium surface supposedly should not be good-looking....

Nico

Because of the discussion of the C4 appearance going on in another thread, and because I mentioned I don't care for the diver to be titanuim, I did want to post one more thing about the diver. While I would vastly prefer stainless steel to titanium, the movement is more likely to impact my purchasing decision than the titanium. I remember a time when the plan seemed to be leaning toward a hand wound Unitas. Someone posted a comment about the fact that it would have a screw down crown and the inconvenience of having to unscrew the crown every day to wind it. To me that was a big deal. I traded some email with Chris about that because it seemed like a very important issue with the movement. Chris had reason to go with the hand wound, it was not without precedent. He mentioned another fairly well esteemed watch that had already done this, but I dno't recall who it was now. But, now, it appears that the handwound is out, and a quartz and automatic is in. In my opinion much better logical choices for a diver. I am really glad to see Chris offer us a choice on the movement that way. So, based on what Hans (I think it was Hans) posted, I could have stainless steel if it were more important to me than the movement. But it is not.

The movement is also very important for me, both the Unitas or a automatic ETA are appealing to me, a quartz would be a no-go for me, I'm only interested in mechanical watches..