So I recently dropped of an 806 dial in very poor shape with an art conservator, as sort of an experiment if someone with an art background (vs a watchmaking background) can clean and conserve the dial - in particular remove all the gunk on the indices that is very much likely dirt intrusion.

The first picture is of the watch before it was sent out.

The 2nd picture is the first experiment - the conservator used a chelating agent HEDTA (some type of alcohol conservators use) more details here:

http://www.chemspider.com/Chemical-Structure.8443.html

Well, it looks like after just swabbing the 12, 1 and 2 indices, all the gunk fell off, but it looks like the lume had fallen off as well

You will notice in the first quadrant, a lot of the dirt has been cleaned up

 

I just got another pic, and it looks like the lume was stripped away prior to my conservator working on it, as a picture at an angle shows that even the unworked-on indices are quite flat

 

Cleaned up with a great vintage toned relume and I like.

When the lume is that far gone, I think it's a great improvement esp since that dial otherwise looks great.

 

The lume on there looks like some of the dials that had been cooked to "tropicalize" them. I wonder what happened? Looks like a candidate for a clean it all off and either go with no lume, or have one of the experts apply period correct looking lume. It absolutely looks better in the after photos so far, to me anyway.

 

Art conservators are magic, and under-appreciated.

 

Which begs the question - who are the experts?

 

The 2nd "after" pic showed that the dirt was flat, so the lume was probably stripped away a long time ago.

I explained to the conservator the lume had tritium, and she is married to a nuclear metallurgist

 

No doubt that the "dirt" is old luminous compound that has suffered from moisture and age.

 

100% it's the luminous material that's gone mouldy/dirty.

 

So it sort of gotten soft and spilled to the sides?

 

Yes. 1-2mm of migration over 50 years, likely due to decreased viscosity as a result of moisture ingress.

 

Well after the dial is cleaned and that hopeless lume cleaned off, who are the usual suspects for a vintage style relume?

 

Well interesting journey so far. This is what it looks like fully cleaned

 

A layer of toluene is applied as a test on the broad areas of the dial - conservator says this is fully reversible - to protect the dial. A side effect is that it adds a bit of gloss, which also pleasantly hides some of the dial scratches.

She tried to remove the rust on the subdials by using pumice water and gentle scrubbing, but ended up stopping because it was starting to strip the paint. So the rust stays

 

The toluene looks good, but are there a couple spots that were missed? Or was she just not quite done? Looking around the center hole, as well as between 10 -11 and 1-2.

 

This was just a test, I just gave the go-ahead and she will do the entire dial.

This "experiment" with the conservator is not done yet, but very promising. What was disappointing was that I really wanted to see if she could clean off "booger lume" while still maintaining the original lume, which I though this one had (turns out lume was decayed so bad it practically melted out of the indices).

The only other booger lume watch I have is an Ed White, not confident to have her work on that yet. So I'll probably have to pick up an "expendable" watch for her to work on.

 

I can't see where you'd be able to remove green lume to reveal yellow lume underneath. It's a very thin layer and when it's green/dirty, that's it.

Interesting experiment though...

 

Honestly not sure - I just know I've seen a few people post about some of the re-lume they've had done that looks excellent, but I can't remember the specifics about the threads.