1.16.2010

Titanium Dive Watches

Many modern day dive watches are now manufactured from titanium. This has many benefits as titanium possesses several qualities that make it perfect for deep sea watches. Titanium is known as a "space age metal", it is strong and corrosive resistant and is encountered all over the planet in bodies of water and soil deposits. Discovered in 1791, it is possible to combine it with other elements to produce useful, lightweight alloys that have be utilized by the aerospace industry as well as dentists and the military. The metal is found in a variety of sporting goods, automotive products, jewellery, mobile phones and sports watches.

First used in watches in 1978, by the International Watch Co. (also commonly known as IWC) located in Schaffhausen Switzerland and was partially owned by Ferdinand Porshe in that era, the company utilized Titanium to produce the world's first watch bracelet. On the heels of this success, the company designed an entire Titanium case and bracelet for another watchmaker in 1980 although that company was subsequently forced to withdraw from the project leaving IWC - a maker of internal movements at that time - to take complete control of the manufacturing process for titanium cases.

Making a watch out of titanium was not a trivial process and IWC managed to refine the process of creating polished titanium watch cases down to a fine art. They released the world's first chronograph watch in Titanium that originally sold for around $1300 - a bargain considering how revolutionary the engineering process was at the time.

The trend caught on and titanium watches are now everywhere. Nearly every watch manufacturer on earth has a titanium watch within their product lines. The Citizen watch company is the largest, using titanium in their sports and diving watches. Titanium is 30% stronger and 50% lighter than steel, is corrosive resistant, and hypoallergenic. While it is more expensive than steel, can scratch easily and stain, watch makers like Citizen overcomes these problems with a glass multi-layer coating that prevents scratching.

There are several factors that have led to the increase in the number of diving watches that use Titanium in their cases. Titanium is the ideal case material for dive watches due to it's strength, lightness and resilience in seawater environments. Titanium watches feel lighter on the wrist and there is an abundance of Titanium metal available.

The list of dive watch makers who utilize Titanium metal is endless, Seiko, Citizen, Omega, Rolex and Invicta and the list goes on... Prices tend to start around $250 for these watches and can retail for much higher in the top quality watches. More titanium dive watches are being produced every year. From space age material, to a practical underwater, deep sea resistant watch case for divers, the titanium trend is likely to continue for many years to come.

**Visit Amazon.com to learn more about Titanium Dive Watches.

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