Hi there,

I want to individually mention James Hyman's work here, because he just helped me very much.

James has been a matter of several threads here, but I think that my project was something special.

I had a 2915 dial for years, having been 'relumed' in a way that I can only call awful. It was the worst 'relume' I'd ever seen and the 'relume' thing applied was like 20 year old Pattex, that could not be removed from the indices.

Otherwise, this dial was simply beautiful...

I thought about what to do with this problem project for years. And while thinking about it, always decided to do nothing, because to me the risk of making it worse seemed too high.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself, that I should have a try on restoring it.

Finally, after having corresponded with him, I sent this dial to James Hyman.

Here are the steps of restoration in pictures:

This is how it looked like in the beginning:



James took off the 'Pattex' and then the dial didn't look better: Only shadows left of what was there, originally.
Well, but at least this 'Pattex' had gone forever.



James and I discussed the further procedure and decided to have the vanished index colour replaced by some lume, which would bring in the missing thickness and contours of the indices.

So this was the second step of restoration, being shown here:



Well, here is what turned out to be the final result, after only a couple of days, the lume not cured... Waiting for final pics to post them here:



What do you think about James' work?

 

James is a master of his craft. I had him Relume a 105.012-65 dial recently. Certainly not a 2915, but evidence of James’ excellent work.

Before then after:

 

The work on 2915 will be spottable very easy cuz the structure is way to even.

More interesting how does it look under uv light

 

Thanks for sharing

Same q from me - can you post a UV pic when this is finished? Thank you!

 

I am aware, but this dial was just garbage before James did his work.

There was an option that James offered to add some UV powder to the lume, but I did not want that, because that lume is harder to apply.

Then people nowadays use Geiger counters to check if it's radium.

 

I will leave some pictures with cured lume for sure.

James will send them early next week.

 

Amazing work, looks so much better

 

thank you for the extra precision - can you please elaborate on what exactly is "UV powder"?

thanks

 

And sorry for this but my finger really slipped... UV pic is what I meant!!!

 

Well, James could have added some UV-powder to the lume

Uv powder can be added to the lume applied to make it glow under UV light.

 

James will add luminous Material if wanted. So basically he can make is a subtle faint glow to a roaring glow. Or none at all. He will customize. I had him add at a touch to match period correct glow.

 

James is a magician!

 

I've seen some of his dials, he does an amazing job beyond reluming. And I would always all the way prefer this restauration over a deteriorated and/or washed dial.

 

Yes. And doing his job at the speed of light.

 

Thanks for the info... So he can basically replicate any vintage lume looks, both in normal light and UV is what I'm reading....

Thanks!

Paul

 

Yes. He can do that.

What do you think about my dial project shown here?

 

I think it's absolutely lovely! And I bow to your ballsiness of having such a dial touched-up

 

interseting .... let the pics speak

 

would love to see a macro of one lume plot

 

Also have one great experience with James, he really delivers quality work.