Horological Meandering

i've just come back from seeing my doctor and he has a problem. he and his family are highly qualified Scuba divers and he chooses to wear an Omega SMP quartz plus a Suunto computer. his son has very sensitive skin and cant wear steel or even titanium without irritation so the good old Doc was looking for a gold SMP, a bit over the top for a 16 year old me thinks. i just happened to be wearing a PVD Fortis with Bund style leather strap and when i showed it to him he had the idea of using a piece of Neoprene to cover the back of the watch which is worn on a rubber diver strap. this is a fine idea for diving, but will look a bit rubbish for daily wear. he does have the option of a leather Bund style strap, but are there any other dive watches out there that will be more hypo allergenic than steel and titanium and cheaper than gold? i've suggested PVD and even offered to lend him the Fortis to try out, but as i'm no expert on dive watches other ideas would be great.

cheers

Graham

Graham,

The most likely explanation for any apparent reaction to a high grade titanium watch is that the surface was contaminated with soap or some other allergen.  It's doubtful that anything would be less allergenic than a high-grade titanium.  He might try a used IWC Aquatimer in Titanium, cleaned well.

Park

Titanium shouldn't be a problem, but if it is...and the PVD Fortis suits him, I believe there are DLC coated dive watches from Seiko and Citizen, but I am not sure whether the coating extends to the caseback.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend an Aquatimer. Internal bezel dive watches are really fiddly. Plus if you wear your backup timer on the righthand, you can hardly get to the crowns...