Titanium Watches – Pros, Cons and Scratch Resistance

Advantages of Titanium Watches

Are you looking for a stronger but more lightweight watch? Maybe you have an allergy to stainless steal watches or you hate the cold feel when you put your steel watch on during winter.

Titanium is stronger then steel but about 45% lighter making it a tough but light material for any watch. Titanium has many advantages of stainless steal in terms of tensile strength, flex, and weight, and its hypo-allergenic properties. It is also softer on the skin. For all of these reasons it is so appealing to jewellery and watch manufacturers.

However, one point to note is that Titanium is harder to process and with the higher grade forms, processing costs rise exponentially. For example grade 9 Titanium is unlikely to scratch at all with many years of use. However watches tend to use a lower grade for the casings, which can be scratched more easily.

Most watchmakers don't provide any details of the Titanium grading in their specs, hence why some Titanium watches hold out better than others

To avoid your titanium watch from scratching or to get rid of scratches you can obtain surface treatment. A cheaper alternative is to simply use fine grit sandpaper. Because Titanium is so soft you can ‘polish’ away the scratches leaving the surrounding area the same colour and looking brand new.

Some recommend using fine grit sandpaper, others say an ink eraser. Whatever method you use take your time and use carefully.

Buying Scratch Resistant Watches

Duratect is a marketing term registered by Citizen. It is Japlish for
dura-techko or durable technology. A Duratect marked watch which you should find on the caseback has been surface treated to make it scratch resistant, but a variety of methods are used on different models to achieve different levels of hardness and finish.

Citizen Duratect watches involve “special treatment on existing materials like stainless steel or titanium to harden the surface. Applying this technique on stainless steel, they can achieve a hardness 3 to 4 times higher by penetrating carbon from the surface in order to distort the crystal of the metal. The result is a scratch-resistant hardness for daily use.”

Brightz is registered by Seiko. Brightz is a Seiko developed Titanium alloy that's 30% harder than steel, and harder than regular Titanium. The main advantage though, is it's virtually indistinguishable from sterling steal. A Brightz watch scratches about as easily as a sterling steal one, but is much lighter.

Casio uses hardening technologies to produce scratch resistant watches in their Titanium Casio Oceanus lines but does not use branding such as Duratect..