Titanium Damascus
It is not surprising that, as soon as this metal appeared, it immediately attracted everyone's attention. It turned out that it is almost twice as light as iron and stronger than many grades of steel. It is capable of combining with other substances, improving or even completely changing their properties. So, interest in titanium and its popularity are only growing over the years, and the areas of application are constantly expanding.
Titan also attracted the attention of Zlatoust masters. The result of a bold experiment was a watch in a titanium Damascus case. In fact, the Zlatoust Watch Factory is one of the unique manufacturers that dares to create watches using Damascus steel technology, which is thousands of years old. Moreover, they work here not only with steel. An experiment with an alloy of brass, copper and nickel silver, which produces an incredible wood grain pattern on the metal surface, was successful. And a special source of pride are titanium and titanium-zirconium alloys welded using the Damascus technique.
As with working with steel, here we use sheets of metal, but not steel, but titanium alloys with varying titanium content and additional elements. The layers are heated and forged repeatedly until the result is a single block of metal. The case of the future watch is cut out of it and carefully polished. The surface is then heat treated and the magic begins. Depending on the proportion of titanium and the composition of additional chemical elements in the alloy, it reacts differently to heating. And in the pattern with characteristic damask streaks, each layer suddenly takes on its own color, from light yellow and orange-red to purple.
By the way, if you add zirconium to this cosmic mixture, you will get an even more saturated color range. But the production process will also become much more complicated, since zirconium is a capricious metal. You need to work with it extremely carefully, because it ignites easily. It doesn't melt, but rather flares up like cardboard. But the result is simply incredible, it’s definitely worth seeing in person. And you definitely need to hold the watch in your hands. To be surprised by their unusual lightness, especially considering the famous “Zlatoust” size. Titanium is truly one of the lightest metals, not without reason it is called “winged” and is widely used in aviation and rocketry.
The factory is able to make not only cases from titanium and titanium-zirconium Damascus, but also dials, the thinnest plates with the same "snake-like" pattern that cannot be repeated in any other copy, because the uniqueness of the process also lies in the fact that it is impossible to program and plan the final result. It will be different every time. Unique. And amazingly beautiful.