Guys,

I've had my 105.012 serviced recently, and unfortunately the H/M hands' tritium lume fell apart during service (it was already cracked...)
The watchmaker relumed the hands but I'm not so glad with the result. I could have lived with it but now the chronograph needs a small adjustment, I need to send the watch back. I thought it's the perfect opportunity to give this stunning dial a handset it deserves, so I got in touch with James Hyman (who seems to be a super nice chap).

The easiest way to do this for me would be to buy modern luminova H/M hands (chrono hand is original and perfect) for not so much and have them relumed by James.
Second option is to have the hands removed by my watchmaker, ship them to James and install them back in the 012.

Question is: do you have thoughts about this, would you see a problem in having modern hands in a 1966 Speedy? I'm thinking that the H/M hands are the same "design" anyways and it wouldn't change anything... am I wrong ?
Thanks guys!!

 

I've had lume done by james - quick turnaround and great quality work. No need to get your watchmaker to remove the hands. Send it straight to james and he'll remove them himself.

 

Well it doesn't look right at the moment as you are aware . The lume on the hands can be colour matched by the right person it will be a great improvement. I know a guy that is an expert at this. It will look original and aged.
No names no pack drill pm me if you want the contact.
Nice watch by the way.

 

Imo your best option by far is to send your original hands for relume and have them refitted. They are the original ones and it will be cheaper than buying new. New hands are the same shape but will be bright white and look out of place.

 

It will cost a fortune in shipping and the chronograph needs to be adjusted anyway... I feel like I can have the hands relumed while the watchmaker looks into the movement. It would be the easiest route though

 

Yeah that's what I'm leaning towards. It will be more time consuming but it will probably cost less and it will still be the original hands of the watch...

 

Thank you very much

 

That is a stunning dial. I agree to use the original hands. Would you pick same color as the chrono lume?

 

Thanks! The dial is the reason I got the watch in the first place...
I would pick a lume color to match the dial lume and the white paint to match the paint of the other "old" hands
My understanding is that the chrono spear often gets darker with time.

By the way! Maybe @Archer or @Spacefruit can chime in, but this 321 is doing funny business. Yesterday the watch had not much juice left, I ran the chrono to time my way back home and the watch stopped at 59 seconds. I freaked out, give it another shot and it stopped at 2 min and 59 secs. I stopped the chrono and the watch ran fine through the night.
This morning I've wound it fully, started the chrono and it has been going strong for 30 minutes. Anyone has ever experienced this? The movement is very precise and was serviced last month...

 

I concur. This is what my relumed dial plots and hands look like:

 

Looks really awesome. It's not a big deal, but I'd love to match the hands to the amazing dial

 

The watch will stop when more torque is required to keep it running than the mainspring can deliver. With the chronograph running, there is added load on the movement, and that load is not constant. There is a peak load when the small finger on the seconds recorder wheel trips the minute counter, and that process starts at 59 seconds...

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks Al for the reply. Does this mean that the mainspring should be changed ? Considering that the watch had a smaller power reserve and that now the chrono runs fine, I hope it's not a big deal.
The watchmaker said that it's probably just an adjustment he needs to make...

 

If the watch was just serviced, the watchmaker should have replaced the mainspring.

There's not enough detail to know if this is even a problem or not, so curious that your watchmaker would talk of making adjustments.

I would do this first - fully wind the watch, turn the chronograph on, and let it run until the watch stop - record the number of hours it ran.

Then turn the chronograph off, and the watch should start to run again - wait until it stops and then see how many hours of run time you have for each situation and in total.

Post the numbers here and I'll tell you if I think there is actually a problem or not.

Cheers, Al

 

Great, will do so tomorrow. Thanks again.
Is the mainspring an expensive part? It sounds expensive

 

$38

 

Great info here, thanks Archer!

 

Maybe I'm a bit " risk aware" but James is not able to ship insured to full value. No problem with a set of hands, but with a complete watch it sounds like committing suicide to me.

I would have the original hands relumed by him. He is also able however to make new hands look old (i think he paints the white hands some kind of off white color).

Good luck!

Would definitely relume by the way.

 

Almost 4 hours in, she's going.
The chrono hand looks stuttery though. Almost feels like she's in pain with the chrono turned on :/

 

Hello Al,

So, I've done as suggested above, and as soon as I woke up this morning I wound up the watch and fired the chrono. The watch ran all-day long (over 12 hours now) and has kept perfect timing. The hand stutters a bit from time to time, but nothing major I'd say.
I'm going to bed now and I don't want to leave the chrono running all night (if it "fails" I wouldn't want to leave it in that state for hours.) Maybe I'm an idiot, but I feel like I need to preserve it

Does this give you some kind of indication on the movement ?