Precious metal
1. Platinum: is a rare and expensive natural pure white metal, one of the world rarest precious metal used to make jewelries, annual supply is only 5% compared with gold, but possessing double intension and 30 times rareness than gold. Very pure and white in luster, purity can reach up to 90%, totally naturally made, won’t fade even you wear it daily. Pt900 stand for 90% purity of platinum, pt950 stand for 95% purity of platinum.
2. K gold: k gold (karat gold) refers to the metal mixed by gold and other metal alloys. Precious metal among k gold should be the pure 24k, but due to the reason that pure gold is way too soft not suitable to be used as material of watches, have to mix with other metal to increase its hardness, usually silver, copper and palladium are mixed, but no matter what kind of metal used, at least 75% of the pure gold should be contained. As different percentage of gold, silver and copper, can generate 5 different kinds of luster metal, using “n” respectively represent the amount of copper, like the most high copper contained red gold, we use 5n to mark, while white gold, in a more accurate way, it should be a gold in white color.
3. Silver: silver is an ancient precious metal, is the most frequently used metal in 18th century to make pocket watches, 925 stands for the purity of silver, also being the highest purity in silver. Silver is an active metal and easily cause reaction to the sulfur in the air, so to generate a black oxide layer, and make silver become black. Nowadays, in the application of watches, it can’t catch up the widely usage of gold, the reason mainly is because it’s easy to lose its original luster due to the reason of water, moisture and many other reasons.
Other metals
1. Half gold: made of with 18 k gold and stainless steel, having an aesthetic of two colors combined
2. Gold covered metal: its surface is stainless steel, wrapped by alloy, after rolled to a whole, often using micron as its unit of thickness, 1 micron=1/1000mm, 10-15 micron max, but normally 2-3 microns in thickness.
3. Plating: plating is the most common decorating method used in modern watches, plating technology is appeared in 1970s, due to stable nature of plating and cheaper and not tend to fade than gold covered metal, and no chances of yellowing, color fading and rusting, so this technology win out among the above two species rapidly.
4. Copper: in terms of watches, copper being the best material, it’s characterized by easy processing, mainly applied on movement. Currently a majority of movement are using brass copper alloy plates. We usually see movement with two colors of yellow and white, yellow movement is usually plated with titanium dioxide, and white movement is plated with zinc-nickel alloy.
5. Steel: steel, chromium and nickel compounds, this kind of material is hard to process, but corrosion and wear resistance are better than previous species, you can choose to get it plated on surface or not, by adding extra polishing, sand blasted or brushed, to present different stereoscopic outlook.
6. Titanium: under the hot tide of complete stainless steel watch, titanium starting to emerge. This material is called as the metal from “air times”. Then what is titanium? It’s found in the crust of the Earth, it’s a metal with bright shiny on its surface, or be the silver-gray, dark grey powder. Titanium is a lightweight, hard, heat/cold-resistant metal, having a layer of oxide coating to prevent wear and corrosion.
7. Tungsten alloy: firstly stressed about 1000pa to get the tungsten carbide and titanium carbide powder into the blank material, starting build the mold, then throw it in a particular made furnace with high temperature of 1450 degrees to let it sinter into high density component, later after a series of methods and steps along with polishing by diamond powder, then we have the glittering tungsten alloy, with very great wear resistant ability.
8. Tungsten steel: great hardness, wear-resistance, sharp and clear lines, clean and bright, known as the wear-resistant material, combined with steel can be used to make the bezel, strap, to increase abrasion resistance and somehow a decoration to the case.
9. Ceramic: ceramic features by qualities of clean, wear-resistance and no harm to skin, an important component is zirconia, very excellent processing performance under certain temperature, and through advanced processing methods to make beautiful case, strap, and also can deal with special treatment to gain a variety of colors, so to make it look more noble and graceful.
10. High-tech ceramic: pour the extremely delicate zirconia or titanium carbide powder into the mold, under high temperature of 1450 degrees to sinter into high wear-resistant ceramic parts, thus the unique luster of high-tech ceramic can be formed.
11. High-tech lanthanum: extract these smashed really rare lanthanum element to particles, then put the blank material into furnace, under high temperature and high pressure compressing to generate the high-tech lanthanum. Its hardness is higher than tungsten alloy, high-tech ceramic, not tend to be wear out, and able to issue a mysterious light.
12. Blue steel: blue steel is particular steel generated under particular treatment of special firing, so we can see a ray of blue glowing luster. Blue steel is major applied on hands. In addition to increase beauty, it also functions high anti-oxidant feature.
