Officine Panerai

BluNotte
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Loving Titanium!

Ciao Paneristis!

Hope you all had a great day! I'm here to share some photos that i took of the watch that accompanied me for this day, the Radiomir Titanium PAM 309!

I really love this watch, because not only is it a SE 47mm Raddy, but it is the 1st Raddy to be crafted from my second most favourite metal of all, Titanium!(the 1st being Platinum, for those who do not know i'm known as the Platinum Boy of the forums!) And since my love for Panerai started with a Raddy, and not a Luminor, naturally this for me is the Ultimate Radiomir!

On top of this, as if being made from Titanium alone isn't enough, it is crafted from 2 different grades of Titanium ( chemical symbol: Ti), Grade 2 and Grade 5. Grade 2 Ti, is the most popular commercially pure (cp) Ti grade. It has tensile strength levels between 390~540 MPa.

The bezel of this Raddy, which is crafted from Grade 5 Ti, belongs to a class of Ti alloy known as the Alpha plus Beta alloy, and Grade 5 ( which is an alloy whose molecule has the structure Ti-6Al-4V [ that is one atom of Titanium is bonded to 6 atoms of Aluminium which in turn is bonded to 4 Vanadium]) is the most popular Ti alloy within it's class. An interesting fact about this alloy is that it was one of the very 1st Ti alloys to be developed, since it was 1st made in the early 1950s in the USA at the Illinois Institute of Technology. There are primarily 2 reasons for the success of Grade 5 Ti. Firstly, it has a good balance of it's properties ( which includes the density, strength, ductility, fracture toughness, creep strength, corrosion behaviour, oxidation behaviour, weldability and cold formability), AND it is by far the most INTENSIVELY DEVELOPED AND TESTED Ti alloy, and this brings a major advantage, because when industries utilise this alloy, they can rest assure that virtually NOTHING can and will go wrong. ( FYI, the industry which makes the most use of Grade 5 Ti is the aerospace industry, as a point, one single engine of the Airbus A380 uses approx. 6500kg of Grade 5 Ti alone in it's construction)

Whew, did you guys follow me in that? I absolutely love metals, and tend to explain more about them than most care about, but well it is my passion!

Add to all this Ti stuff, you have one extremely well finished movement ( of which i initially had some complains about the blemishes that i found on it, but after getting it cleaned for 5 months back at the OP spa, and having it returned to me just a few weeks ago) that would not lose out even when compared to say a Lange movement( I call it the Lange Panerai). It is THAT well finished Paneristis! What more could one ask? Therefore this is one Panerai that every Lange fan should own, and since i am one, i feel extremely blessed to be able to own this masterpiece. WHile it is true that i absolutely adore Platinum, but I have made it clear before that for the brand OP, a platinum is simply not suitable, when you take into account it's history, what they were made for, and what OP represents today of it's customers, for an OP, the ultimate and only suitable metal for it if it wanted to be part of the modern times, yet represent what OP would have been in the past if it had the technology of the present, is to execute a watch in Ti.

Without further ado, here are some shots of what to me is the Ultimate Raddy!

Black OEM strap

Thanks for viewing my post my friends, and please, for those Radiomir fans out there, post some of your Raddys! And what is YOUR king of Radiomirs, the watch that started it all? ( To our dearest moderator Jester, i know you are one of those Raddy fans, what is yours my brother?)

A Panerai can't do without a Luminor, but don't forget that a Panerai was born from a Radiomir.

One of my holy grails still, waiting for OP to do a re-edition , the 2533!

Ciao!

Stephen