I’m hoping the good folks here can point me in the right direction.
I purchased a Titanium Seamaster chronograph a few years ago from an online seller. His photos made the watch look great and I was happy at first with the condition of the watch. After a while I noticed that the mid case has been polished, especially the non crown side - it’s lost it’s shape on the bottom edge by the caseback. The question is: can this be repaired by welding? I know that there are people around who can laser weld steel but I’m struggling with Titanium. I’ll try and post a photo later when I have the watch at hand.

 

I work in industrial construction and can confirm Titanium alloys are readily weldable. Welding Titanium isn't as "easy" as most other metals, but it can be done consistently if the right procedures are established and the welder is qualified/certified.

The question I don't know the answer to is whether or not any of the jewelry welders, who routinely weld repair watches, can weld on Titanium. Sorry.

 

I remember Losangeles watchworks put back in shape a titanium case.
But yes, titanium is kind of a bitch to work with.

 

Thanks for the replies. If anyone can recommend someone in the UK, or even in Europe it’d be appreciated.

 

My personal experience with case refurbishment (stainless steel) is that it’s expensive. I’ve got to think that titanium case restoration is going to be around $1000. What’s your financial cutoff?

 

Well, as much as I like the watch, I don’t have a sentimental connection with it. So my limit would be the difference in the selling price of mine and the buying price of another. At a guess I’d go to around $400?

 

I'm guessing that the challenges with Ti would be the similar to welding aluminum - they both oxidize pretty much immediately when exposed to air, so I would expect you would need shielding gasses when welding it. TiG I expect would be the most common method, but it's not a material I had to deal with in my engineering days, so correct me if I'm wrong there...

Most case restoration is done via laser welding, and I had a look at some laser welding machines - they do sell annealed (dead soft) Ti wire for these machines, and as expected recommend that welding be done with argon shielding gas. How easy or effective this would be for case repair is a question I can't answer.

 

Titanium requires a trailing gas or it must be welded in a controlled environment (with shielding gas in the controlled space called a "chamber", which is usually a bag around the weld). Titanium welds done without "post weld" shielding, until the weld cools, actually can look very good, but they don't have the required properties.

We don't have a steady diet of Titanium, so we have to brush up on all the requirements and mock up welds, before we do productions welds. All that said, Titanium is the only metal we work with that requires these controls. We work with carbon steel, all manner of stainless steels, Monel, Inconel, Hastalloy, Cu-Ni and Ni-Cu alloys and many Aluminum grades.