The Grey NATO – 214 – Titanium

Published on Wed, 02 Nov 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

The hosts discuss their recent experiences with titanium watches like the new Rolex Deepsea Challenge, Tudor Pelagos 39, and Scurfa diver. They explore the advantages of titanium like its light weight and corrosion resistance, and why more affordable titanium watches are appearing from brands like Scurfa, Baltic, and others. They reflect on previous titanium watches they have owned and why those pieces didn't stick around long-term. Overall, they see titanium having a resurgence in the watch world, especially for sport and dive watches.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 214 and it's proudly brought to you by our ever-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. We've got a ton of new orders after last week's show, which we're really excited about. If you still haven't signed up and you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. James, happy, I guess it's Monday today, a day earlier than we usually record. It is. Halloween. Yeah. Halloween.
James Stacey Happy Halloween. Thank you so much. Yeah. Same to you. I've been doing some face painting and, you know, putting together some, some tiny people's costumes and that kind of thing. So it's super fun. But yeah, we're actually recording a day early because we're recording a special episode tomorrow, which you can expect to see hit the feed on a special day, November 8th, next week. It's sort of a brand new thing for TGN. It's going to be brought to you by Collective Horology and it's inspired by their new collaboration with Armin Strom. they've teased this at this point, uh, the actual watch. If you're keen, you have to go to their website to take a closer look. But on our side, if you're a fan of adventurous high-end watchmaking, which we certainly are, and maybe even a fan of a good old watch draft, uh, you know, keep an eye out for this special episode. Uh, next week we're really pumped and that's why we're doing this episode a day early.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I'm really excited about it. Uh, love the guys from collective and, uh, you know, who doesn't like, uh, an extra episode.
James Stacey So absolutely. Yeah. Just, just the guy that has to edit it.
Jason Heaton Right. That's true. And you've got a busy week ahead, which is another reason why we're Kind of slamming here today. Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. It's been, it's been busy. I haven't, I haven't helped any of my busyness as a you're, you're currently listening to the voice of a man who put his own passport through the wash, you know, what, three days before I have to go back to the States for a trip to DC and then into New York. Oh man. So that was a, that was a fun morning, a fun morning. I actually, you know, we probably would have recorded this even a little bit earlier time with the good people at Passport Canada. Um, with a very water damaged passport. Uh, thankfully it does look like that'll be sorted out, but goodness sakes, talk about adding kind of stress to, yeah, just like I say, I feel like I say this too much and it comes out like a complaint. It's not, I mean, nobody's to blame but myself, but yeah, it has been a busy, a busy go and the whole Geneva, Laika, LA for Omega and then home for a few days and destroyed my passport.
Jason Heaton Yeah, seriously. I hope you, uh, I hope you got to keep it. You didn't have to turn it in. Maybe you can post a photo of it. Uh,
James Stacey I didn't even think to take a picture of it. I don't even know how much you can take a picture of, right?
Unknown Yeah. Right.
James Stacey Because the outsides aren't made out of paper. Like the outside looked pretty normal. Yeah. Yeah. But then like the photo of me in there looked like I had left one cartridge out of my printer. Oh, sure. You know, it was just orange. Yeah. And then like where my, my signature was gone and a bunch of the stamps in there had all bled into each other. And yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, I'm not sure this password would have lasted the 10 years I've done it. I've had it for six and it was getting pretty full, but still what a pain. And, and, you know, not a small cost, uh, all things considered to, to have it done in 20 hours. I'll get another one, but yeah, uh, you know, never a dull moment at the Stacey household. How about you? How's your, how's your week been? Good weekend?
Jason Heaton Well, in comparison, I hate to admit it was a very relaxing weekend. Um, we, you know, we're having this spell of amazing weather and, uh, that led to, a day kind of outside yesterday actually all weekend I kind of fiddled with the Land Rover with the Defender on Saturday for most of the day you know it's it's a great opportunity to kind of spruce it up get it ready for for winter I put some really heavy duty mud flaps on and uh and then kind of fitted some interior kind of niceties and and kind of just you know I just kind of keep doing rust mitigation and and kind of sprucing it up getting ready because you know for the next five six months I'm not gonna be able to be out there in any level of comfort, you know, crawling around on my back underneath the truck. So, right. Yeah. And then we went hiking yesterday. We, we, uh, after breakfast, we, we went, we found this trail that, you know, we've lived here for two decades and, and never knew this existed. It runs right along the Mississippi river, no more than five minutes from our house. And it kind of goes down along the river bank, like right down by the water and up and over, you know, lots of kind of bluffs and cliffs and culverts, uh, storm sewer runoff into the, into the river. just had a blast. And then we finished with a beer at an outdoor kind of brew pub place, which was just the perfect way to spend a Sunday.
James Stacey Yeah, that's nice. I mean, it's been a real mix here as far as the weather, but we are getting cooler days and then suddenly we get a warm afternoon. So we're getting a little bit of that. I'm hoping it's not raining tonight for trick or treating, but otherwise, what are you going to do?
Jason Heaton Um, a bag of candy to hand out to, to any kids that come by. But last year we didn't have a single and we live in like a neighborhood where there are a lot of kids. So I don't know if our house just looks intimidating. Maybe I need to turn more lights on or something, but, or maybe I just gave a bad batch one year and everybody was like the reputation is spread or something.
James Stacey We'll see. Yeah. Or the kids are expecting, you know, a pipe and a, and a, you know, a fifth, a decent smoky scotch or something like that. I just didn't, didn't get what they wanted.
Jason Heaton Adult trick or treaters. Yeah, right.
James Stacey Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so that that's good. Um, the, the other thing that I did happen to make, it just worked out in terms of timing was when I was in Germany with Leica and you can hear a little bit more about that on the last episode, but when I was in Germany with Leica, uh, you know, you get to try out a lot of gear either, either gear they have their gear that somebody else is carrying around.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And Josh Rubin from cool hunting was there. And I've known Josh for a really long time and he has, uh, the M 10 D the one that doesn't have the screen.
Unknown Mm.
James Stacey But then he shoots it with what's called a Visiflex, a type 20 Visiflex, this little periscope that clicks into the hot shoe on the top of the camera and gives you a digital viewfinder. Oh, wow. Okay. So when you're shooting a range finder, depending on what you're doing, you know, you're basically looking at a little rectangle in the middle of the focusing area. Yeah. And then as you rotate the lens, cause it's a manually focused lens, you're trying to perfectly align an imposed image on top of it. So you're always kind of looking for the edge of someone's eyelid or a straight line on a car or a house or something to get an idea of your focus distance.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey When you get into really fine stuff or when you get into nighttime, it gets really difficult to tell if you're actually in focus or not. You do get better at it as you go. I've found it got way easier than when I first started. But I played around a little bit with those Visiflex and I was like, man, I kind of could see like really enjoying one of these, especially on super sunny days when you're just staring at metal like cars. Right. Right. Because now I can, I can, I can kind of relax one eye. There's a little bit less eyestrain than using the, it's not a split prism, but the range finder, you know, design. And so I added it to my Kijiji list. Kijiji is like just a buy and sell everything from cars to everything else. And I've had pretty good luck finding Leica stuff on there. There's other camera nerds that are on there. I've bought and sold Canon stuff as well. And so just by chance, like dropped a Visoflex into the search. And the guy like three or four hours before had posted a brand, like essentially a brand new one. He'd used it a couple of times. The price was okay. And I was like, there can't be like, there's not that many M10 knuckleheads that want to buy anything used, right?
Unknown Like me looking for like,
James Stacey These were seven or $800. The viewfinder knew, I think maybe even a little bit more. Uh, so I, I wrote the guy and I made an offer that was not like mean. And he came back with only a slight revision and I was like, all right, let's do it. And so Saturday morning I drove out there and picked it up and I played around with it for the afternoon a little bit. Uh, and, and just, I was very impressed by it. I'm having a good time with it for sure.
Jason Heaton It sounds like, um, uh, at least on the, the M 10 without the, without the screen on the back, that, that almost seems like, like a sacrilege to add that to it.
James Stacey But um, it is an interesting combination to, to not only float. Yeah. The lack of a screen, the like bare bones concept of an M 10 a D uh, and then put the visual flex on it. But depending on what you need to shoot, it can make a lot of sense. I don't think I would always have this thing on. Oh, the other thing you can do, this is silly, is um, you can, review photos with it.
Unknown Oh, okay.
James Stacey So if I want to check that I nailed focus on something, I don't have to look at that little screen in the bright sunlight. I can like put my eye up to a covered and that I think might be more valuable than actually, cause I haven't really found like shooting cars or whatever. I've, I've had very good success with using the range finder. Yeah. Um, but then you do want to check and make sure that you weren't a millimeter, two, three, five millimeters off of what you actually wanted to show. Yeah. And this way it's a lot more like the cue where I can snap the photo and immediately like spin the thumb wheel and it takes the review image and zooms in. Huh. And so that's also quite handy. And it's kind of a funny looking thing. I put it on my Instagram, but just the way that it sits on top of the camera, it definitely looks like an afterthought, but in kind of a charming 1930s sort of Wes Anderson-y afterthought.
Jason Heaton And that's a Leica made product, obviously. It is.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I couldn't get used to the range finder. experience years ago, a friend lent me an M6 film camera many years ago. And I remember taking it hiking up North for a weekend and I just couldn't get used to, to kind of focusing that way. And, uh, I guess my only other experience vaguely similar to that is using the Nikonos underwater, which, um, you know, just has this kind of dummy viewfinder above the lens that you have sort of, yeah. Um, which isn't very helpful. And it's a certain degree of guesswork, but you sort of get used to it. But yeah, I would definitely be a customer for the Viziflex if I, if I went that route.
James Stacey Yeah. I think, I think I would love to get to a point where I knew, like I was going to see you and I knew I would see you again in two weeks and I could just leave the 10 with you. Oh yeah. Because for me, like some people remember, like I've had that camera for a long time and never used it. I found the range finder to be very intimidating. Yeah. at the, when I first got into it, I didn't like, and this is a crazy sentence. If you're a, a, like a nerd, I didn't like the 35 Lux widely considered the greatest 35 millimeter lens ever made, certainly for manually focusing, didn't care for it so much. And it took me essentially buying that 50 and feeling like I was doing something I couldn't do with my cue to invest enough time in the platform to get fast at it and not fast, like a pro, like, yeah, but I had to get over this hurdle of like finding it kind of too much in the way. Anyways, there's probably enough camera talk, but I'm, I'm pretty excited about the Visiflex. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to put it through some, some actual use in the next few weeks.
Jason Heaton Well, I will piggyback a bit of camera or camera talk on that. I, um, this is sort of tangential, but when we were in Bonaire, I, Kishani and I worked on a piece for Worn and Wound. I actually have never written for Worn and Wound and they have this concept sort of series that they call Toolkit, which is a, um, openly sponsored, uh, series that they do with various watch brands. And I think they've done it with other than watch brands as well in the past. But, um, you know, where, where somebody takes a watch and goes on a bit of an adventure. Uh, our friend John Gaffney had gone hiking in the white mountains with, I think it was a Hamilton and he's done some stuff with Laurier, uh, cold water surfing. And so, yeah, Gashani and I took a couple of citizens down to Bonaire and did a story for, for their toolkit series. And that publishes on, Well, by the time this episode goes live, it will be up. So, uh, you can hit the link in the show notes and check that out. Yeah. We got some great underwater and topside photos of, of the couple of citizens that we, um, that we took along. So yeah, excited to share that. Yeah.
James Stacey I knew you were down there shooting a bit of stuff, but I didn't know it was for that platform within worn around. I think that that'd be a lot of fun to produce work for.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it was really good. So, um, I don't have an exact link yet, but we'll throw this in the show notes and it'll direct you to their toolkit page and you can, you can find it there. So for sure. All right.
James Stacey Anything else you want to get into some?
Unknown Yeah. All right.
James Stacey Anything else you want to get into? Okay. Might have to leave that in. Yeah. Anything else?
Jason Heaton Or do you want, do you want to talk about some watches? Let's talk about some watches. Yeah. All right. I'll go first because I think you have one that's more apropos to our, uh, our topic today, but I'm just too excited to not wear this one. I, you might remember that I used to have a, a vintage 6139 Seiko that the so-called Pogue with the yellow dial. This is their, their automatic chronograph. And while it was a cool watch, I just, I seldom wore it. It just, it wasn't my, you know, my wheelhouse. I'm a dive watch guy at heart. And in the past I've had a 6105 Willard and I sold it and I've always missed them. And the new one, the kind of the SPB 151, 153 kind of tribute piece to that never quite struck me as like exactly the same vibe. And so I saw one come up available uh 1976 6105 and uh and I parted with my Pogue in a heartbeat and picked up the 6105. It was pretty well an even swap and I couldn't be happier. I've been wearing it almost non-stop for a couple of weeks in between my my honeymoon with that Mark III Speedmaster that I got and I talked about last week. So I'm kind of on a vintage thing these days, which isn't, isn't like me. I've always loved the Willard. There's something about the way the bevel on the crystal catches the light and kind of the shape of the case that just always looks good when you see it in photos. And it was concerning, you know, the, the, the kind of odd crown design on these is apt to, to leak with, with some of the old ones. So I, I went out on a limb a bit and I, um, pulled out my tools and I actually took the movement out and put the crown back in and then did a full kind of water pressure leak test with this water pressure tester that I have. And I cranked it up to five bar and let it sit there for five minutes, I think, which is a pretty good test. And then it didn't leak at all. So I'm pretty confident that the gaskets all looked good from what I could see. And clearly this has a new crystal because the case is pretty battered, but the crystal is pretty clear. Someone, someone took care of it in the past. And, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm just over the moon with it. Such a cool watch.
James Stacey That's awesome, man. I, they are, they are a, um, a, like a, uh, uniquely beautiful design that like has now found footholds in so much of what Seiko does.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Uh, it makes so much sense for you to have one of these for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. How about you? Uh, you've got something at the other end of the spectrum in many senses.
James Stacey You know, I was wearing, wearing the scurf a lot. The MS 22 spoke about it on the last episode, really loving it. I'm still like, I'm in that point where I'll just like change the strap three or four times a day to see what I'm interested in. I've been wearing a bunch on like a green canvas that came on a, um, a Hallios years ago. And it's just like a key. I fall asleep with it on the titanium weighs nothing. It's there's a whole titanium theme to this episode, but to, to get into it a little bit further, um, you know, as we bridge our way towards the main episode, the other thing that I got, just a few days ago and I have it until mid-November is the new Pelgos.
Unknown Oh yeah.
James Stacey Man, I thought I was, I thought I was kind of pumped for it from like the hour that I spent with it back when it first launched. It's so much like, it's so good in person, but it's also so good that it's almost not that interesting. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's like, it feels like they made the exact watch that, that like I want or need, but it's also like very subtle about the way it goes about it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, especially on the bracelet. Um, I'm trying to think of how much, because like, there's going to be a huge story for who dinky about this. We're going to do a week on the wrist, which I'm very excited about. I've had the watch for a few days. I've had it on constantly. It weighs so little, especially off the bracelet that you, I, like I have, it sounds cliche, but I have actually checked my wrist to make sure it's still there. Like reach down to grab it and feel it against my wrist. It's crazy comfortable. the more I wear it, the more for me it, it does feel like a Pelagos. Yeah, actually we don't even need to take forever to do this. I, the only thing I don't like is that it's 21 millimeter lugs. That's literally my, maybe my only complaint about the watch. And then the other thing is, is I, I swapped it to the rubber bracelet, the rubber strap, and I cannot find any sizing that where that's comfortable. Oh, and that's not the way it was for me with the blue one. I wore it on a rubber strap for almost the entire time I had it in Mexico years ago, 2016. Yeah. So I'm going to try it again. I'll try it again before, before I send it back. But I got it home on the bracelet and immediately popped it off the bracelet. Cause I had experienced that already. And then went and put it on, on the rubber and it looks great. And it feels incredible until you actually like want to move, change the watch's position on your wrist. And it's almost like it has too much bite against the meat. of your arm. It's a little bit hard to explain. I'll try and figure out what I'm trying to say and put it in the eventual write-up. But in my mind, I would be the guy to get the Pelagos and wear it a lot on the rubber. And I think now the rubber is almost inconsequential for my maybe six hours of wearing it that way. The bracelet took a bit of resizing. So Rolex sized it once for me. But they sized it so it only really fit with the T-fit at full extension, which kind of defeats the purpose. You need the T-fit somewhere right in the middle. Yeah. And then I just kind of played around every little while I would adjust the T-fit. And I got to a point where, yeah, it was perfectly comfortable. I think it could benefit from having a half link if I was getting really picky. But I don't think it would make that much difference for me. And then I wore a bunch on the bracelet enough that I put a scratch in it. Sorry, Rolex. Beyond that, I did swap in a 20 millimeter NATO just to see how much it would bug me if I felt like I would have to be like checking. Yeah. Checking the time with a lighter, like bond with this tiny NATO on his, on his sub. And to be honest, it didn't, it didn't bother me immediately. And then the watch is so good on a NATO. I like it almost immediately cemented the fact that I have to get one of these. Oh, I don't even care. 21, 20, you can barely see it on the watch. Huh? I did order a 21 millimeter NATO. I don't even know after I ordered, I realized like, Oh, I may actually give this watch back before, uh, before, uh, that order from cheap NATO straps arrives. But yeah, I'm, I'm absolutely smitten by it is the easy answer. It's kind of a blending of what I like about the Submariner with what I like about a lot of the Pelagos and, uh, the loom on the hands could be better. I'll put that in with the 21 millimeter lugs. It's not, it doesn't have loom like it's older siblings. The markers are crazy bright. The bezel is crazy bright. And then the hands are just a little bit more dim. So if you're taking a loom shot, it's a little annoying. But if you're a watch nerd, to the extent that you're trying to take loom shots of your new dive watch, and I'm there with you, it is a little weird to notice that the hands are a different brightness. It's keeping great time, as you'd expect. And the size is just incredible. It just really hits. I said I wasn't going to talk a ton, and I talked a ton.
Jason Heaton What do you know? No, that's interesting. I think when you and I were chatting over Slack, I was trying to think what it was about, um, the Pelagos that, you know, and I've, I've tried a couple of them. Um, the blue, the black, I owned a black. Um, and, and when I had the black one, then I sold it to our friend Paul Hubbard and he's since moved it on. But I was trying to think why I got rid of that watch. And every time I look at a Pelagos, I think, Oh, I kind of wouldn't mind getting another one. And I think, I don't know if I could have another one. There must've been a reason. And I think what it is is that that watch almost feels so So perfect. Almost too, it almost leaves me a little bit cold when I look at it. It's very stark, um, to the point where it's almost like a Zen U1 sort of level of kind of perfection and very angular. And, um, and I just, I like a little more nostalgia and warmth to my watches. I think, I mean, hence look what I'm wearing today. Um, but I think that's it because I don't think there's really much wrong with that watch. I think everything it does is perfect. Um, especially the, the larger one, the 42, but, uh, Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it's a spectacular piece and it fits really well into our episode today, along with your other new arrival, your, uh, your scurf up.
James Stacey And yeah, let's just get into the main topic. I guess the easiest place to start is I've talked about on the past episode and on this one that I went to Geneva very briefly. And by the time this episode comes out, you'll know why it's for a new dive watch from Rolex. That's made out of titanium. That's 50 millimeters wide. It's called the Rolex Deepsea Challenge. It's essentially the commercialization of the watch that was taken to the bottom of the Marianas Trench by James Cameron. With a few updates, obviously, this is Rolex's first full titanium watch. They very clearly saw what happened with Omega and the Ultra Deep and decided like, oh, we'd like to be in that game, too. And instead of 6000 meters, they do 11000 meters. So, yeah, it's 23 millimeters thick. It's like twenty six thousand dollars. And I went there and I went there and I thought like, well, you know, I've, I've, I've really feel like at least in my perspective, and I understand like I'm conflating, I'm, I'm projecting to a certain extent, but it feels like titanium is having a bit of a moment these days. And especially with in, in different price points, like on the desk in front of me, I have the Skirfa and the Tudor, both really incredible watches that I've fallen in love with, like in hours of having them. um, on my wrist. And then of course I went to Geneva and they were like, Oh, we have this incredible watch. And then I was like, 11,000, how do you test to 11,000 meters? I was like, like, even if you take it to the bottom of the ocean, you'll barely get there. And then it starts to settle in like some other stuff. Like keep in mind that the deepest known point of the ocean is 11,022 meters, but they test this, this, um, watch is, superlative chronometer, which means it has to be over tested. Right, right. So they test this watch for more water pressure than exists on Earth. It is the end dive watch. Yeah, right. Yeah. I don't know that Rolex could make a watch that's less like a normal commercial watch that someone would buy and put on their wrist. Like they've made a collector's item. They've made a tribute to their history with the Bathyscaphe Trieste. They've made, you know, a further establishment of what they've done with with James Cameron, and they've turned it into a product that they are actually going to make that goes significantly deeper in the water than Everest goes up into the air. 36,090 feet. Wow. They showed me the machine where they test it. They test eight at a time. I'm working on putting a whole story together. It's jaw dropping. They couldn't use the one that they use, of course, for the current deep sea. 3,900 meters just isn't enough, right? But yeah, it's their own titanium through a special supplier. They're not forging their own titanium at this point. It's 23 millimeters thick. I don't want to get the lug-to-lug wrong, but I want to say it was somewhere close to 60 millimeters. On wrist, not as big as you think, is what I would say. Huge. Yeah. Absolutely huge. But when I say 50 by 23 by something like 60, you think that's like wearing two watches at the same time. And the mix of the combination, the combination of the titanium, the rest of it, really made it something else. There's a story on Hodinkee that's worth checking out. I shot the photos for it. My new colleague, Tony, who's an incredible writer and knows a ton about Rolex, he wrote the story. And like I said, I'm hoping to be able to follow up with some comments about how they tested it and how they made a watch that's so different than everything else that they produce that still has to follow all the same rules. So it's obviously Cox certified, but then it's also the Rolex superlative thing. And again, 11,000 meters.
Jason Heaton This will probably not be worn by many. It'll be a great kind of collector's piece. And I'm sure it'll, I mean, it's a feather in their caps. It's, it's amazing that they're actually selling it because the ultra deep, I haven't, um, handled the actual ultra deep other than that, that one that, um, Victor Vescovo was kind of parading around when I met him in London. And, um, that one was marginally, marginally, uh, wearable, I guess, if you had a really big wrist and it wasn't too horrible, but still kind of looks a bit silly on the wrist, but this Rolex must just
James Stacey be crazy. It's very big. Like I said, and you do get the impression that they've made a watch that's meant to go on the arm of a submarine. Yeah. Not necessarily on the arm of somebody in said submarine. Yeah. Yeah. You want to know the weirdest thing about it is how much it feels like a Submariner. Look at the wrist shot. It's a wrist shot on my wrist. Sure. It's big. Sure. It's bulky, but look at the dead on wrist shot and the side wrist shot. And you're like, Oh, it's they, they took a Submariner and they put it on a, on a photocopier at a, you know, Oh yeah. 140% or whatever and, and, and went for it. So I guess 20%, if we're going from 40 to 50 in terms of width. Yeah. I think this is like a special thing from Rolex. Yeah. Maybe, maybe sometimes you wear it, maybe, maybe you take it diving once or twice on, you know, over a wetsuit or a dry suit. It is dive computer sized. Yeah. Like I don't think, I don't think my Suunto Zup is that much bigger than this. Um, I, I was both like impressed and it's a bit of a head scratch.
Jason Heaton You go like, well, and also I think nowadays, um, there probably is a growing, still small, but growing audience for watches like this, because as, as we see now, there's been this relative explosion in undersea tourism and, and rich, rich people having submersibles. Like there are submersibles that are on, you know, these, uh, mega yachts and, uh, you know, people like Vescovo, Paul Allen, um, know, probably some oligarchs, whatever that, that want to go deep. Um, they're, they're starting to do more and more visits to the Titanic and, um, different things. And maybe that's the crowd. Maybe these are the people that, that buy a multimillion dollar submarine of their own and they want the watch to go with it. I mean, kind of, kind of cool, I guess, if you're a rich guy and have that, I mean, it would be kind of neat to strap it on the outside.
James Stacey Yeah, absolutely. And if you're in the world of yachts and your own submarines, then this watch is absolutely one, meant for you, and two, priced to be within your zone. The last thing that I think this says, obviously they're not going to make 100,000 of these a year. They can test eight at a time. So they're not going to make that many, but they're going to learn a lot about titanium in the process of producing these. there's something to be said for the way that Rolex occasionally uses one watch as the test bed for another watch. Right. Right. And so we might see, we might be seeing the Rolex professionalization if I make something up of titanium. For all I know that something like this watch could be something they make a bunch of, they become kind of an interesting halo piece, a calling card of a certain type of collector for the brand. You know, like I guess if you had a deep sea, an original one, Very, very rare, very collectible. Then you got the Cameron one, right? Maybe you've got a couple of Sea-Dwellers in there. I think you'd want this, even if you weren't going to wear it, right? Yeah. Like if you're just a deep Sea-Dweller collector. Right. Right. It sounds, it sounds funny. Cause like you and I aren't going to buy this watch. No. And even if we had 26 grand, like, yeah. If I want a titanium dive watch right now, I would argue that the, the best version of the Sea-Dweller concept is titanium and it's made by Tudor. right? Which is kind of where I wanted to get into this discussion. This is a bonkers watch. It was a real treat to get to see it in person. Cause I'd probably won't ever again. Yeah. Unless they do a different color version and I get to see the, you know, the, the gradient dial or something at Basel world. Cause this isn't a watch you're going to bump into somebody at the airport and they've got it on their wrist or that sort of thing. It is this sort of, yeah. But with the bracelet and the case shape and everything, it was just super weird how much Submariner there is in this, even when it's so much bigger and more hardcore.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And, and, you know, speaking of titanium and kind of trickle down effect, I think, you know, there were some spy shots of Ben Ainsley, the, the Olympic, uh, sailing skipper, um, from, from, from England who was seen supposedly wearing a titanium yacht master prototype. And people were speculating that Rolex was headed down that path. Hey, you know, maybe you're right. Maybe this will trickle down into some other Rolexes. And I think it's, it's a good springboard for our overall titanium watches topic in in general, kind of when you zoom out and you look at titanium itself and how that has trickled down, when you, when you consider that, you know, they say that citizen created the first titanium watch back in, I think 1970. And then of course we saw Porsche design in the early seventies and IWC kind of mastered it and on and on and on. And now here we are with, with a diver one from Scarfa, you know, coming in at just a few hundred dollars in titanium or that Yeah. And, and titanium is now everywhere. I remember when I was getting into, to, um, kind of bikes, high end bicycles years ago, you know, back in the late nineties. And, you know, I had steel, then I had, um, aluminum, which was a lot lighter, a lot stiffer. And then lo and behold, titanium bikes, uh, frame bikes just started to, uh, you know, become a thing. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, to kind of take off. You started to see them everywhere and the price started coming down and there were more accessible brands with titanium frames. And I just feel like you're, you're right. I mean, titanium is now everywhere. It really is having a moment in the watch world.
James Stacey Well, I think we can even, we can even be a little bit, a little bit more specific than that. Cause we've now talked about essentially the peak Rolex dive watches, titanium, the peak Tudor dive watches, titanium, the sportiest Vacheron, the Everest series, titanium. One of the, I mean, you take your pick where you would save the, the spiritual peak of Audemars Piguet is. Yeah. But for me, it'd be an RD2. That's titanium. You want the most hardcore, most collectible Patek Philippes. You got to consider a T reference. That's outside the scope of what we usually talk about, but it's there. They do them very, like very, very infrequently. Sure. And with the new 5811 out and they've been quite a, Thierry Stern's been quite clear that it's going to be a while till there's steel. That might be a way of saying, yeah, titanium.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And then now you have a thousand dollar diver from Citizen that has hardened titanium. Right. Right. We've seen some fantastic titanium sport watches from Bremont. Actually, for a while, I think they were making arguably the best titanium sport watches in the world. The TI-46 stuff.
Jason Heaton Yeah. The Boeing kind of collaboration they did. I remember them, you know, I went on a trip with them to the Boeing factory in Washington state. And I remember them showing us the, you know, some components from the landing gear of, I don't know what it was at the time, probably a triple seven or something. And they were saying, know, this is the exact same alloy that that's used in our, our Boeing watches and, you know, made an impression. I mean, and it's, it is a great material. I mean, I think you and I have both owned and used and tested, uh, a number of titanium watches over the years. And, um, I can't say that, that many of them have stuck. You know, I, I still have, uh, uh, I guess the, the one that I wear the most is the, is the Skirfa and the one that you just got as well. But, um, do you like titanium? I mean, why, why don't we have more of them?
James Stacey It's a great question. And it's one now where, like I said, looking at the Skrfa and the Pelagos, the Challenge Diver, thinking of my Aerospace, my recent experience with old and new versions of the Porsche Design Chronograph 1, the NTTD Seamaster, the No Time to Die Bond one, Pelagos et al. I've had so many great experiences with titanium. I don't know why I didn't keep any of them or why they didn't stick around.
Jason Heaton I mean, OK, so when you think about titanium, on your wrist like you have right now. Um, or if you're wearing your scurf or I remember our remarks, both of us have experienced it with that challenge diver from citizen. We're like, this watch might be better in steel. You know, it was like, but, but when you do wear it, like when you're holding it in your hand, titanium feels too light. But when you wear it on your wrist, you're like, it's like a light bulb goes off and you say, this is, this is why they're so good. They're just so comfortable. They weigh nothing. And everybody touts the, you know, they're, they're a magnetic and they, they're, you know, corrosion resistant and, and, um, warm to the touch, et cetera, et cetera. But I think what it really comes down to is they're just lightweight. I mean, we don't really care much about the other aspects of it. That's all kind of on paper, but when you get it on your wrist, they just feel like you're wearing nothing.
James Stacey Yeah, no, I agree. And I think probably my best experience with titanium watches probably comes down to the time I took a Pelagos to Mexico, took it diving, did the whole thing with the rubber strap. It's like a perfect summer watch basically. Yeah. The several years I had with the aerospace that I regret selling. And then I went to Clipperton with Oris and dove extensively with a Durmeister talker.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey And, and I would say that the thing that connects all three of those is they were great on their bracelet or on something else. And I think some of the other stuff I've owned in the past, earlier citizens, like a BL 5250, my experience with like with the FXD, it was a little bit too much for my wrist, even in titanium. Um, yeah, I think it just comes down to finding a strap that matches the watch itself. Yeah. Uh, because I think titanium bracelets are pretty, pretty tough to pull off. You know, you gotta spend some money to get there typically. Um, and, but I, you know, and that's to say, like, I haven't experienced the, the Skirfa one. Um, the bracelet on the Pelagos is lovely. The bracelet for the, um, Durmeister Tucker was very nice. The, that incredible mesh, for the no time to die Seamaster. Like, I guess I'm not really answering the question. I don't really know why none of these have stuck. Maybe, maybe for me it'll be the Scurfas, the first one that like, I just, I just can't, I don't like taking it off my wrist. I've really come to like the quartz, the lume is good, all that kind of stuff. What about for you? Were there, were there points where you got really close and it just, it didn't stick? And do we have a reason why, or it's just, it just is what it is?
Jason Heaton Well, I'm looking at this kind of list I put together of titanium watches that I've actually owned and worn and, and you know, Um, early on years ago when I was writing for revolution, I actually had a chance to spend a week with the Jaeger LeCoultre master compressor diving geographic. This is the watch with that big, um, depth sensor on the side. Um, you know, it was, it was just a spectacular piece came on a, on a bracelet, full titanium bracelet, really wild piece. Um, I've had the, the pro master 1000 meter eco drive. I've had an emperor tuna thousand meter Marine master now. the common denominator between those watches is there were huge, and these are huge watches and that was mitigated by the titanium, um, on the wrist. So it made it more wearable. But I think the problem was still, and the reason these watches didn't stick, at least the ones I owned where there were huge watches, there were big, I don't care if there were lightweight. And so, uh, yeah, you've try a smaller titanium watch like the challenge diver from citizen or the Scarfa very wearable pieces. suddenly you get all the advantages. You're not just making up for the size of the watch by with a lighter material. You're actually, you know, you're really getting the full benefit of the titanium. So I think maybe the reason some of these didn't stick is they were just, they were just simply too big, regardless of the weight or the material they were made out of.
James Stacey Yeah. I don't know what possessed me when I, when I ditched the aerospace. I mean, there's more out there. I forgot that watch was titanium. I honestly forgot about that. Case and bracelet, super light, really, really fun on wrist. It was probably one of those ones where I talked myself into like, Oh, you've had your time with it. Yeah, yeah, I probably sat for a little while or went to another one. But yeah, you know, I, the, the, the scratch ability of titanium is the main drawback, especially if you're a bracelet guy. Cause the bracelet, like it's one thing to get a few scratches on the case or maybe have the watch long enough that like the, the case kind of hazes out with scratches. Yeah. Yeah. That'll take so long to happen on the surface area of a bracelet. Um, that I could see that being something that like, digs at people going the titanium road, especially with an expensive watch. Right. Where you want to wear it every day. You want it to be your daily. It's light. That's like, it all leans in and then suddenly it's just getting beat up no matter how you wear it. Yeah. And so the, the hardened stuff from, from Citizen, which is available on a lot of their watches, the super titanium, I think is very, very interesting.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But I guess I can neglect a dimension. The one watch that I still have and that I wear the most that, that has at least a good part of it as titanium is the, is this Garmin Fenix six. And I wear it, you know, It's probably the watch I've worn the most for, for, you know, skiing, cycling, running, et cetera, over the past couple of years. And, um, there's a case where titanium has trickled down as well from kind of the realm of Porsche designs and, and, you know, high end, um, kind of luxury watches to, to a watch that, that kind of a marathon runner would wear or something like that. And they use titanium and they probably didn't have to, I mean, they could have made it out of some kind of a full composite case, but they chose to put titanium on. And I think the, The talking point that we used to read a lot about when we would read about new titanium watches was, oh, it's so difficult to machine. It's so difficult to work with. And yet something has changed in the industry that has allowed brands big and small like a Scurfa to source a titanium case that must not be that terribly difficult anymore. They've come up with new techniques.
James Stacey I think it also depends one, which grade you're using. Yeah, neither Jason nor I are metallurgists and we don't play either on the, uh, on the internet. Um, grade two at the, at the most basic level, there's actually a pretty good primer from a blog to watch, which I'll include in the show notes. We grade two is the commercially pure that's in quotation marks. Everybody says it that way. Titanium it's super lightweight, corrosion resistant, but it's not as strong or as heat resistant as a grade five. Grade five is a higher end titanium. That's a 6% aluminum and 4% vanadium. Yeah. The end alloy is stronger and deals better with heat and corrosion. Um, it's my understanding that grade two is the one that's like easier to produce. Okay. So there is something to consider between two and five when you're looking at the price and the quality and the finishing, uh, the two stuff is cheaper. You get a lot of the benefits. You just don't get all of the benefits. Yeah. If you're a knife guy, you'll know how many different steels are used for knife blades. Right. And each one has its own sort of properties, whether it means that, you know, let's say it's, a high carbon steel that's a little bit cheaper so that the knife ends up being less expensive or something that's quite a bit more expensive, but maybe is significantly harder to sharpen because it's harder, right? So it's that sort of thing. There's, there's a bit of a give and take, um, with that, but grade five is a bit of the flexing. It's, it's a higher end, uh, material. So that weighs into some of this where we are seeing watches that use a lower end alloy, um, hitting a, a lower end price point, but also if you're not expecting a credible finishing, Like if the watch can have simple finishing like the Scurfa, then I think it doesn't bother me. You're not paying for something you're not getting.
Jason Heaton I think if we, if we kind of survey the, the scene and watches these days compared to, you know, as I mentioned earlier, like 10 years ago or more than that, um, they're, they're just, there's so many more choices now. If you're, if you want to get into titanium and your aerospace was from what the nineties, maybe the eighties even.
James Stacey This would have been mid-90s, yeah, E-5606.
Jason Heaton So that's, you know, that's impressive for that era. But now we've got, you know, Baltic with the Aqua Scaf and Zodiac with its Pro Diver. And they're just, they're popping up everywhere. The DOCSIS Sub-600T, the Pacific that they did with Time and Tide. And SINs had a couple, I think the T1 and T2. I don't know if they're still in their lineup, but those were titanium. And we mentioned the Bremont, but there's, know, we're kind of spoiled for choice now, if that's the route you want to go. And I think a lot of people are kind of, for one thing, pricing has come down to an accessible level for titanium. It's a little less exotic feeling, but also people are just, I think, starting to kind of catch on that, um, to all the benefits of, of titanium. I think if there's one aspect that I've heard as a complaint, if you will, about titanium, it's the, it's the kind of look and kind of the dull, more gray. finish, but I think some brands are kind of stepping that up and actually making it look a little more like a nice polished steel case. It almost surprises you.
James Stacey The only scenario, and this was in comments on a previous episode when we first talked about the Pelagos 39. If you want competition for the Pelagos 39, like that's the price point that you're in and you want like, what's the best option? It's probably just the Pelagos 39 or a normal Pelagos. Yeah. Like the Scurfa, I don't think that anyone looking at the Pelagos would go like, oh, I'll get the Scurfa and that'll probably do it. Yeah. Yeah. Just because, I mean, if you, if you can afford the tutor by this, by the scurf as well, right, right. It's a couple hundred bucks. Like it's great as kind of flipping and callous and silly as that is, that's, that's probably the route I would personally go. That's why I say that, but you're not necessarily spoiled for choice for, um, higher end dive watches in titanium. You know, it seems like something that is pretty common in the say under $2,000 space. And then you get into the Braymont stuff, but you're also at that point at a 43 millimeter, right. You could go with a titanium aqueous, that's also going to be on the larger side compared to a 39 millimeter case. So I think it's an interesting landscape and I'm keen to see where it goes in the next few years if the Pelagos 39 proves to be more popular than the standard Pelagos. Yeah. If the interest in that watch maintains the sort of interest that we've seen with the other 58s, then I think we might see a bit more of a trend towards people making titanium, really nicely wearing higher end sports watches. Like it's not inconceivable to think that Zinn could do a titanium U50. Yeah. It's an interesting kind of landscape for this today, but I just realized whether it was, you know, holding that incredible Rolex and trying to fit it on my wrist with like an entire polishing cloth stuffed under the bracelet to make it look somewhat normal. Or just how much I enjoyed the Scurfa and the Pelagos 39 in person once I had some time to find the right strap and size it correctly and just kind of let it wear it on my wrist to the point where you forget that it's there. And then you go back to a steel watch, even a light watch like the Serica. I'm working on some photos for the Serica. And you go back to that and you go like, man, the way it balances is way different. you can really find a nice, a nice balancing point on your wrist with, uh, with some of these thinner, uh, titanium watches.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I sure wish my, um, my mark three speed master was titanium. No, I mean, I mean, it just, it sits up so high. I mean, these watches that that's what I was saying earlier about like, I guess we always overlook or I always overlook when I think about high end titanium watches, um, a lot of the Marine master, um, Seiko's, you know, the kind of the tuna cans. I mean, those were, Grand Seiko does a lot of really nice work with titanium, even in watches that aren't especially sporty, that kind of sit in that middle zone.
James Stacey I've seen some beautiful stuff. You know, obviously if you've never had a, like a snowflake or something like that on your, on your wrist, you have one impression of what it would be like before you pick it up. And then that changes when you pick it up and it has this lightness, but it's finished to such a high level and, and is really quite beautiful and doesn't have the utilitarian vibe of, of something like the Scarfa. Uh, it feels a little bit less too much, a little bit more dressy. And, and to see that, that kind of takes shape in titanium is cool too. And then of course, like we've seen, and we've listed some of them already, but like, we've seen some, more high-end expressions of titanium being used in dive watches, even some that were known for being steel, like the ProProf.
Jason Heaton Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's a perfect use of titanium for a watch like that. I love it.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the ProProf's just, yeah, it's a dream watch, right? They're super cool and funny at the same time. And well, the other one I came across, Jason, and I've not had any experience with these, but it is one of those ones where you go like, wait, is this maybe like sneaky, like pretty close to a perfect watch? Is Hamilton makes a titanium khaki in 38 millimeters. That's crazy. Like why? That's got to be wildly good on your wrist. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice looking thing. We'll put all these in the show notes and stuff. Like it's not, we're not just sitting here. I guess this is a little bit of a love letter to titanium, but it's more that I just wanted to mention and start a kind of a chit chat. We can eventually bring this to the slack in the next week or so from when this comes out. But you know, how do you use titanium? Why do you like it over, over, steel or do you not for in the opposite? Like, is your impression the other way around? I'm just so impressed by what you can get at a few different price points now. And it does kind of seem like kind of the two of the bigger, more influential brands between Rolex and Tudor and even, you know, like Omega going with the bond in titanium. It seems like titanium is having a bit of a moment in sports watches. Yeah. And like I said, maybe that's projecting, but that's definitely how it hit me in the last few weeks. And it's definitely having a moment on my wrist.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton I think you're right. Same here. I think we both experienced that in the past, uh, past few weeks, past few months. Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, I think that covers it. I mean, there's no, you could go on and on about, you know, the metallurgy aspect or, or some famous ones from history or, or whatever. But, uh, I think we kind of, as you mentioned, this was a bit more of just a love letter. I realized, you know, looking back, we haven't devoted an episode to, to titanium ever. So this was, uh, this was good and very timely.
James Stacey Yeah. And be sure to let us know in the comments, it feels like ceramic has had such a huge moment for the last five, six years. And then we, we see carbon kind of touchdown occasionally at different price points. Yeah. But the, uh, the titanium stuff, it really, yeah, the, the, the appeal is really growing, uh, for me in a wider range of watches. And a lot of that's probably tied to the Pelagos, um, a watch that we talk about a lot, but I'd love to hear more in the comments. So I jump on to the sub stack. If you're not in there, please make an account. Uh, you can get the episode and everything delivered right to your inbox. every Thursday and you can jump right into the show notes and chit chat with everyone. We always have a good time in the comments. And I'm, like I said, a minute or two ago, very excited to kind of parlay that into Slack a little later this month. Yeah.
Jason Heaton All right.
James Stacey How about some final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, let's, uh, let's do it. I, I can jump in here. I, um, I was just made aware of a really cool national geographic program that was released in 1969. I don't know if you remember, they had this very famous theme music for the show, but they used to do this, I don't know if it was weekly, um, sort of National Geographic presents a program on TV back in the day. And this one is from 1969 and it is a program about Stan Waterman, one of our kind of favorite sort of TGN heroes. Um, this was called National Geographic Polynesian Adventure and it's Stan Waterman and his family, uh, in Polynesia. And it's, it's about a 45 minute long episode. With just wonderful, you know, late sixties diving kind of tropical Island footage. And, and as a absolute bonus Waterman's wearing his, um, Aqua lung edition, uh, sub 300 pro, uh, Doxa and, you know, Waterman was, he was, he was a gentleman and a scholar, you know, you see him piloting a boat across a lagoon with a pipe sticking out of his mouth and his family's riding in the back. And, you know, they're all shouldering tanks, like the whole family and flipping overboard and like. you know, he's filming with this big underwater film camera and it's, it's just a blast. It's just one of those like shows that I was just sort of soaking in the nostalgia and kind of the beauty of, of where they were. And, and yeah, it was, it was a really cool one. It was really a fun little direct message I got from a guy named Blake who is a listener of the show. And, and he recommended that one and said, is that a Doc's on his wrist? And I quickly had to kind of scan through and find it, but yeah, really good. Um, a good viewing, uh, for that one. It's about 45 minutes and, uh, we'll throw that in the show notes for you to enjoy.
James Stacey That's awesome. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Good tip, Blake. Yeah. That's a Waterman's a King for sure. Oh yeah. Mine's actually a new app that I started using. Obviously we talked about the amount of travel recently, but, uh, one of the guys on the Leica trip that I was traveling with, uh, another dude from Toronto here, Gaja, and he recommended this app called flighty. Oh, okay. And it's like, uh, I think I paid seven bucks a month to unlock the premium, to give it a try for a month, but it's basically just an app that looks at your calendar. And when you book a flight, it does all the stuff for you. So you get notifications late night before to make sure that you have an alarm. It knows all the details for the plane and the travel and the likelihood that it will be delayed. Um, all of the notices that it does appear to be faster than the ones that go to your like airlines app.
Unknown Huh?
James Stacey Uh, so it's just this really slick, very useful thing that also gives you a timeline of what's coming up in terms of travel. So like I have a little widget on my home screen of my iPhone that says like, Hey, in two days you're going here. It even goes a step further. And if you give it access, it'll go through your entire calendars, history, flights, and then give you like all time stats. And that, that I found kind of terrifying. I'm not sure this is someone to be proud of, but like I can tell you, I have spent 25 days, 17 hours in the air, uh, since 2018, uh, which is how far back, uh, it went kind of since I, since I started doing more of the travel with Hodinkee. Yeah. But yeah, for seven bucks a month, I, I used it for, um, the trip I was on recently to LA and I was immediately sold. If, if you travel a fair bit, maybe this is a very much a known, uh, quantity, but it was the first time I had spoken to someone who, who used it and loved it. And I downloaded immediately.
Jason Heaton Nice. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds great. I'm going to, I'm going to check that out.
James Stacey Pretty useful, I think.
Jason Heaton Yeah.
James Stacey All right. But yeah, I think that's an episode on titanium and yeah, all sorts of stuff, you know, the usual. I'm excited to see that worn and wound piece when it goes live tomorrow. So be sure to check that out in the show note. And otherwise, yeah, stay tuned in your feed for everybody, not just those with the supporter feed, but everybody watch the main feed for a special episode the morning of the 8th. We're very excited for it. Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show note to get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, which would get you a new TGN signed NATO, please visit the graynado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from Marty Rubin, who said, take a flying leap at the sun. Don't let your thoughts weigh you down.