Repairing tritium hands when the lume has fallen out

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Yea I’d agree but not hard to solve, the case is quite sharp and clean though so its worth getting serviced and up to snuff
When you say "Not hard to solve" regarding the missing lume hand, could you elaborate on what you mean? I have a Seamaster 166.028 with the concentric circles, orange second hand and both hour/minute hand are missing lume. Is there a way for an experienced watchmaker to relume these hands with Tritium lume that will look close to the patina of the hour indices lume plots?
 
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So I’ve moved this to its own thread, since it’s not directly related to the ebay listings thread.

Watchmakers who specialize in vintage pieces can often stabilize lume if its become flakey / rough which preserves the original lume in place by applying some material behind the hands.

When the lume has fallen out what they do is mix up some tritium lume substitute that isn’t radioactive but may or may not glow depending on preference. They can then color match that to the rest of the lume or the lume on the dial, and re-do the hands. Re-lumeing hands, especially thin ones like on those Seamasters tends to come out looking very good, it’s not like re-lumeing dials which is a lot more difficult to get right. I’ve had a lot of them stabilized or relumed with tritium colored substitute and it’s a cost effective way of getting the watch looking tip-top again.
 
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Just to add to the above reply. There are a few specialists who will relume hands with period-correct material. But the price is probably not cost-effective for a watch like the one mentioned above.
 
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When I called LA Watchworks about reluming the hands on my 1939 Omega, they wanted $350 to do the hands and $100 to disassemble/reassemble the watch. I don't assume this is their price for everything, but can be a decent starting point for research for you.
 
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When I called LA Watchworks about reluming the hands on my 1939 Omega, they wanted $350 to do the hands and $100 to disassemble/reassemble the watch. I don't assume this is their price for everything, but can be a decent starting point for research for you.

Wow ! That is steep.....
 
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Not sure if this helps but my watchmaker billed me for eur 125 for reluming the dial and hands
 
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So I’ve moved this to its own thread, since it’s not directly related to the ebay listings thread.

Watchmakers who specialize in vintage pieces can often stabilize lume if its become flakey / rough which preserves the original lume in place by applying some material behind the hands.

When the lume has fallen out what they do is mix up some tritium lume substitute that isn’t radioactive but may or may not glow depending on preference. They can then color match that to the rest of the lume or the lume on the dial, and re-do the hands. Re-lumeing hands, especially thin ones like on those Seamasters tends to come out looking very good, it’s not like re-lumeing dials which is a lot more difficult to get right. I’ve had a lot of them stabilized or relumed with tritium colored substitute and it’s a cost effective way of getting the watch looking tip-top again.

@dsio Thank you very much for the detailed information, I very much appreciate it!
 
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When I called LA Watchworks about reluming the hands on my 1939 Omega, they wanted $350 to do the hands and $100 to disassemble/reassemble the watch. I don't assume this is their price for everything, but can be a decent starting point for research for you.

I’m in the LA area and immediately thought of them when ready through Dsio’s reply. Appreciate you sharing this information!