This is totally an uneducated question;

I wonder if there's a depleted tritium lume dust available for purchase

Thinking of premixing different shades of yellowed/browned lume mixtures, normally use old Superluminova, behaves the same as old tritium under UV / light etc. - as I need to buy more dust for this project, I wondered whether old tritium dust is a thing

 

You could try this guy, though the thread is a couple years old: tritium
Or James Hyman in the UK, legendary relumer.

 

Thank you, I really appreciate the suggestions, I've messaged 321Only

I wonder how James Hyman will respond to my request for advice and material purchasing, I'd assume it would be a bit of a trade secret, I'd understand if he doesn't share anything

Checking his work, it's quite impressive how he can remove lume from matte black dials, currently plagues with a matte black dialed C-Case of my own that was stained quite a bit

 

Think outside the Box.... eBay has different colour shades for sale .... Search for seller "kameleonglow" .... 50 grams $ 16 ... Try it out and report back.

 

I don’t think James H uses old tritium. Rather he uses modern compounds to achieve either ‘full glow’ or ‘fast fade, tritium effect’ which are then aged to the colour of tritium.

 

I think its not a secret, since the ingredients were discussed here widely before. Omega used zinc sulfide for their lume, which was animated to glow by the Tritium. What we call Tritium Lume today, is basically a glowing paint plus the tritium as emitter.
When I was reading this here at OF, I was looking for this paint, which I back then send to James. James uses this ZnS + 1% Cu paint since then.
Its widely available in paint shops, like here:

https://www.kremer-pigmente.com/de/shop/pigmente/56500-nach-leucht-pigment-gruen.html

The real magic in my eyes is to mix it with a color and apply it in the perfect way, James does

Best Nico

 

Yep as above. Depleted tritium lume is just zinc sulphide with a binder. If you want to fake/restore radium lume on the other hand that is where you need to start scraping old dials as you can’t buy strong alpha emitters over the counter.

 

Not a do it yourself job IMO if the watch has any real value.

 

Thank you, I'll purchase these and use as a base in my mixtures, interestingly I checked their yellow pigments as well, it's all different materials fine grained like chalk etc. - this is my approach as well, I started with coffee but moved onto yellower materials, mainly different art supplies - mixing different things can also mimic stained dial lumes and match the existing oxidization on hands

Honestly it's an interesting advice to give after having a watch just polished and marketing that polish job as professional refinishing to others

 

I’d be curious if even if it can be found, it’s legal to ship.

 

Technically we all traded radioactive materials internationally

 

Honestly, it’s rather pathetic that you would so rudely comment on someone else’s work that you were called out for it by another member. You remind me of a guy in my first year law school class to whom a professor said the following: “Sir, if after the first week here you don’t realize who the class ass is, it’s you”

 

???????????

 

FIFY

 

You're the poster child for DIY as far as I'm concerned, getting a perfectly original case polished and ruined by someone, and then turning around and making a passive aggressive suggestion here in the same direction is in my opinion what's pathetic

 

What in the world is passive aggressive about my suggesting that reluming is not a do it yourself job if the watch is valuable? Did I criticize you? Nope.

In case you forgot, here’s what you posted on my thread:
Ω 1
kaplanJun 28, 2023
I try not to say negative things but you butchered an original case into being a polished poc

Sad to see it done and suggested to others as well, came from your recent suggestion thread

Your case was in incredible condition originally, all the lines were there, from the photos they didn't even do sharp edges, it's just a soap case now.

And here’s how another member, not me, responded to your post:

Did someone hijack your account? Hope so. It’s fine to express an alternative point of view but this is down right ungracious.

So you tell me, Kaplan, whose post do you think was rude, mine or yours? Perhaps you need to work a bit on your people skills.

 

So what good would old tritium be? It will be just as depleted as that on a "T - Swiss - T" mid-nineties dial. While it's not illegal to posses, it's scarce and VERY expensive. Those glowing tubes common in Ball watches have micrograms each.

The other problem is that the old paint-on tritium compounds use zinc sulphide as the luminous agent. It depends on the crystalline structure to glow and that gets broken down by radiation. I have a few radium watches and they gave up the ghost after several years, not because the radium is gone but because of the crystalline breakdown. They don't even glow when excited with a UV lamp.

I have heard that the radium will light up Superluminova pretty well. No idea about the lifetime tho.

 

I admit I may be missing something here, but you mention doing this yourself; he mentions that he doesn’t feel it’s a DIY job; and then you criticize him for having a professional watchmaker polish his watch case? Not trying to be combative here but trying to understand.

 

Thanks, but just let it go, Bob. Kaplan and I discussed this privately. We have a difference of opinion on case restoration vs. polishing. Let’s just leave it at that and we can all move on.