Thursday, 2 April 2009

Watches


I spent quite a bit of time searching for this watch. I was looking for a stainless watch with bracelet, chronograph (or subdials of some sort, purely for the look), black face and 40mm or less. I stretched 1mm on the case (no big deal), and the face is dark enough to get the look that I was after. I love the face. The face is guilloched, that is there is a pattern cut into the face. The subdials appear to rest inside of it, and the numbers rise above it and have a metallic finish to them. The result is a different look to the watch as lighting changes, which I find very appealing.



This is my first Victorinox, and I'm looking forward to wearing it for many years. Victorinox Swiss Army Men's 241405 Chrono Classic PVD Coated Grey Dial Watch

A watch is the one thing that might just be worth splurging on (if you consider $319 " splurging"). Of course you can pay a lot less, or a lot more for a watch, but a watch that's functional, aesthetically pleasing and comfortable is important. If your like me, you'll likely be using it on a daily basis, for a decade or more.



The reason I was in the market for a new watch is that the band on my 15 year old Swiss Army watch kept breaking after repeated repairs. I looked into getting a replacement band but the band alone would run me $140, so I figured I might as well look at a completely new watch.



After lots of looking around, I chose the Victorinox Swiss Army Men's 241405 Chrono Classic PVD Coated Grey Dial Watch. The List Price is $525.00, but you can find it for as low as $319.00 with FREE shipping at Amazon.com



The Victorinox Swiss Army Men's 241405 Chrono Classic PVD Coated Grey Dial Watch has a Stainless steel case with a stainless steel bracelet and a tachymeter bezel. The face is black ice guilloche with luminous hands and Arabic numerals hour markers and luminiscent minute markers around the outer rim. The Chronograph has - three sub-dials displaying: 60 seconds, 30 minutes and 1/10th of a second. It has a quartz movement, scratch resistant anti-reflective sapphire crystal, a stainless steel screw-in case back. The case diameter: 41 mm. Case thickness: 12.2 mm. Deployment with push button release clasp and it's water resistant to 100 meters / 330 feet.

What's guilloche you ask? Find out here

What's a tachymeter and how does it work you ask? Find out here

About PVD Coating

Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) is a process to produce a metal vapor that can be deposited on electrically conductive materials as a thin highly adhered pure metal or alloy coating. The process is carried out in a vacuum chamber at high vacuum (10-6 torr) using a cathodic arc source PVD Coatings are generally used for Medical Device Applications for its hypo-allergenic and wear resistant properites.



PVD coating has been around for decades primarily in military applications original designed to decrease friction wear on metal parts. It bonds a micron thick layer of metal compounds to metal or other materials. Why PVD? First off the finish won't wear off. It reduces wear of bracelets, crowns, bezels, etc. Adds a unique Professional appearance to your timepiece & virtually eliminates reflective glare. As the deposition process is so flexible many industries have begun using the technology. Tooling for example on metal cutting lathes increases the life of all sorts of parts from the lathe bed to the cutting tools themselves. F1, where as many people know is often on the cutting edge of technology in racing has used PVD successfully on transmission gears and engine parts to help those 10,000+ RPM engines increase reliability. Because PVD reduces friction between metal parts less lubrication is necessary and temperatures are generally lower than without coatings. Though PVD coatings are typically only a few microns thick the molecules bond to the surface of the metal in such a way that they are nearly impossible to remove once applied. This long lasting resilience is what makes PVD so attractive for thousands of mechanical applications.



Since it was introduced to the medical device industry in the late 1980s, physical vapor deposition (PVD) has become widely used to deposit wear-resistant thin-film coatings on a variety of medical devices, including orthopedic implants, pacemakers, surgical instruments, orthodontic appliances and dental instruments. The value of PVD technology rests in its ability to modify the surface properties of a device without changing the underlying material properties and biomechanical functionality.

PVD Coating Properties and Medical Devices> PVD coatings provide a number of benefits to medical devices in addition to hardness and adhesion. The most significant are listed in Table I. The biocompatibility of a coating is a prerequisite to its use on medical devices. Coatings are certified biocompatible based on a series of tests conducted by an independent biological-testing laboratory. These tests were conducted in accordance with ISO 10993-1 guidelines for materials that experience short-term body contact. The results indicate that TiN, ZrN, CrN, TiAlN, AlTiN and two Multi-Arc proprietary coatings (Blackbond and Tetrabond) are acceptable for external and internal medical devices that contact bone, skin tissue or blood. [...]

I've worn this watch daily for the past 3 years. It's a well built timepiece. Like all swiss products, this is a solid and beautiful watch. I often get compliments on it. Victorninox watches, are a great lower middle range watch.

Spent quite a bit of time looking for a good everyday watch that was nice enough for the office, but also casual enough to wear with jeans. This watch covers it all. I got the band sized shortly after receiving it and since then I've had multiple people comment on it everyday I wear it. Could not have asked for a better product and the price could not be beat.'


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