MGJVB - Titanium Plating
Whilst taking another look at the MGJVB collection I began to admire some of the black titanium-plated stainless steel designs of some of the watches. When advised to explore further I made some interesting discoveries about the watches and the materials used and, being a believer the idea that more information garners greater appreciation, I dug deeper. Read on to find out more about MGJVB!
The first material covered in this series is the titanium carbide used for plating the stainless steel case, bracelet and buckle. Titanium carbide is an extremely hard, heat resistant ceramic material, which very rarely occurs naturally in a mineral form known as ‘khamrabaevite’.
Applied to our watches through a process called Physical Vapour Deposition, the material was first discovered in 1984 and has a number of practical uses and qualities. Firstly, I bet you didn’t know that this stuff is almost as hard as diamonds, with its hardness registered on Mohs scale of mineral hardness as between 9-9.5 (diamonds register at 10). Due to this hardness, the titanium carbide on the MGJVB black collection has extremely high abrasion resistance and is resistant to wear and sweat.
Secondly, the material is used for a number of machining purposes, but perhaps the most interesting fact, however, is the fact that this stuff is used on the outside of spacecraft and as heat shielding for re-entry into the atmosphere! We advise you don’t try and use it for the same, but that is a cool fact nonetheless.
That’s it for now in this series of the MGJVB collection, stay tuned for more next time at Boutique Von Burg and check out the full MGJVB collection below!