All kinds of funny, unexpected things happen under UV light... it'd have been interesting to see how JH's lume looks like under UV light, be it glowing (which it is likely not to) or something else...

 

You can ask Mr. Hyman for a Color and of course, for the lume-behaviour itself.

 

We will see more and more emphasis on being able to clear track watches to their original roots. If is fine for the person getting a watch 'modified' or 'repaired' to disclose openly when selling. But so many watches change hands many times... no way to stop the 2nd or 3rd buyer turned seller to 'forget' to mention and then the waters get muddy, even if intentional.

 

I used to have a UV inspection lamp. Wonderful little tool. You got to see alsorts of things that simply weren't visible to the naked eye. I started shining that thing everywhere. You could walk around the garden at night and find where the cat would mark its territory; see where the foxes had been running. It opened up a whole new world.

Just a word of advice: never shine one in a hotel bathroom. At least, not if you plan on having a good night's sleep there.

 

But in the end, it's the naked eye that counts, right?

If I knew, what is living in my body, I would probably choose to die immediately.

 

Can I actually OFFER you a free UV torch, shipped to your home directly, and you take a pic for us and post it here?

Happy to pay the $5 plus s&h to see what this looks like under uv's...

 

Persuaded. I'll buy one and post the results here.

 

No!
I was stating that I would much prefer to own a decent looking dial restored by JH rather than have a tired original dial which is deteriorating .
As far as I can see the OP didn’t state it’s been done to sell on as original.
Bit like ok I have a beautiful 1960s E Type Jaguar on original tyres....
Everyone to their own I suppose.

 

I am not intending to sell this dial. I want to wear it with a watch.

It's very hard to send pics of what you see with the naked eye. My eyes tell me this dial is very darkly brown and the indices are pale yellow. It matches perfectly and I let James decide which colour of lume would be appropriate.

And if I should sell the watch, I will tell that the dial has been refinished. Stated this earlier.

The E-Type is a legendary car. Enjoy!

 

But not if it’s running 80 mph on those original tyres!!!!!

 

You think the dial looks too perfect? What do you want to tell me?

 

No I think it looks just right!

 

Are you stuck in 2nd gear?

James does great work and to me, this UV discussion is like looking at your watch under a high powered loupe or (worse still) a microscope. I see all sorts of things on customer watches that I don't tell them as once these are seen, they can never be "unseen".

James is quick and not too expensive. In my opinion, if anyone is really interested, try sending him a dial and then you'll have it in hand, rather than these high res photos on the computer. That way you can judge for yourself in a more realistic environment and I think you're more likely to have the right impression of the final effect.

Cheers, Chris

 

James' work looks excellent, I would have no qualms about using him, though I have not as yet had cause to. In fact his work is a little too good, normally a shoddy redial can be spotted a mile away but when considering a tritium relume, by using Zinc sulphate he can put a dial back to how it would look and behave as if fully original and which will stand up to all but the closest scrutiny. Radium reluming is a little different as it is rather more involved faking the alpha emitting signature, but not impossible if older ground up lume is used in the new compound. I suppose one way to look at it is that if the copy becomes just as good as the original, who cares if it is a copy.

 

I have other dials to proceed with and I'll think about all options there.

This dial here was the most difficult task and I guess it was wise to use lume that was 'very easy' to apply.

No doubt this dial was mostly devastated by the earlier 'relume'. But the result is maybe the closest approach to being a perfect repair I could think of.