Morning all.

I'm sure this will have been touched on deep in the depths of the forum, but I have a question about hands. Specifically tritium. Is it 'acceptable' to purchase a watch where the original tritium appears to have 'fallen out', leaving hands like tiny slitted windows?

I would have thought hands would be engraved and inlaid with tritium, but from what I've seen, it appears the material is simply used to fill a thru hole...

Thoughts?

Cheers

 

Hands are available, it wouldn’t put me off buying a nice watch if everything else checked out.

It’s common for lume to fall out

 

@STANDY It's a bizarre design - a knock could drop all of the material out... Ok, well I won't consider that not too much of an issue.

The next bit that concerns me is patina, which can look like Sellers have used tea to introduce (I've seen tea used to stain aluminium to appear like Alodine - crafty). Another mine to avoid!

Anyway, cheers for your answer

 

Old lume can be stabilised by applying glue to the underside of the hand.

Several threads if you search.

Patina in lume can be done by adding brown pigments to fresh lume. ( if we are still talking lume )

 

Sorry, yes, I was still taking lume. That's worrying... There's a lovely looking 145.022-76 (well I consider lovely looking) available now on Chrono, but it has really quite dark hour/second markers and coppery looking hands. How would you know?!!

 

I think this watch is rather on the pricy side. 5k $ is not cheap for a 145.022-76 without a braclet. Patina is a matter of taste. The dial has damage between 9 and 10 hour marker and you would have to count in roughly 800 $ for a nice tritium hand set. The case appears to be slightly polished. I think that it should be possible to find a better example at this price point.

Cheers

 

This is the way pretty much all lumed hands are made...it's not unusual at all.

 

But aren't you finding them all around this price range, @OWa ? Granted this only had a leather strap, but they all seem to around this money...

I had spotted the damage, but the case polishing again, I wasn't sure. That's the one that's going to catch me out

Don't worry tho, I'm still looking!!

 

Seems strange to machine all the way thru the hand and expect the material to sit there, but hey, if that's the way it's done...!

 

Yeah. Those are the prices dealers are trying to achieve. I think it should be possible to find a nice example in between speedmaster101 prices (http://speedmaster101.com/price-chart-2/) and 5k.

 

It takes a fairly large shock to dislodge the lume. Watches get dropped frequently, and lume doesn't pop out. Of course the older the lume is, the more chances it will fail, but keep in mind that brand policies usually require replacement of hand sets at every service - that is fairly standard procedure in the industry. So in a way, the collectors desire to have the "original hands" (most hands sets that are thought to be original to the watch are not - likely period replacements from an early service) is what causes the "problem" of lume coming out of the hands.

Here are some hands from a Speedmaster I just serviced, and the lume was shaky. I popped them under my microscope, and used the back light to show the condition of the lume - this is the minute hand and although the camera didn't focus well you can see a small void:



The chronograph seconds recording hand has lume pulling away from one side:



But the hour hand was the worst - cracks all through the lume:



To stabilize the lume, I use the same binding material that is used to mix with the lume powder originally, and I apply that to the back of the hand:



This is what the back of the hands looks like, and you can see that the original lume was applied across the entire back side, and the surface tension of the mixture spreads it across the opening. When the binder dries, it becomes a hard material that is quite resilient. If you look near the tip of the hand you can see it's shiny, as I've already applied the binder and I'm waiting for it to dry:



Finished watch - you can't easily see the lume issues with the naked eye, and the final result looks fine:



Note I kept the photo darker so you could see the lume colouring...

To machine a pocket in the hand, and evenly fill that with lume as you are suggesting the hands would be made, would be hugely expensive and would not be cost effective from a manufacturing standpoint.

Cheers, Al

 

@Archer what an amazing response; thank you for the the explanation of your work. In terms of expense, with modern laser etching, a shallow pocket is no issue at all, and filling can be entirely automated, with precision. But that's the modern mass-produced way (maybe not it the watch world), and I've designed many things that use these kind of techniques. And avoiding these modern manufacturing methods is the exact reason the vintage model is for me (when I find it!).

Either way, I know who to come to for hand repair!

 

I hope so, but I get the feeling everyone's quickly cottoning on...

 

Glad you found this information useful.

With regards to using lasers to create the pocket in the hand, yes I know it's possible. In my previous career as a manufacturing/process engineer, I justified, purchased, and installed a number of laser systems like this (for marking product information on hardened steel components - bearings to be specific). I think you are missing the key point though that there is absolutely no business case for making hands the way you are suggesting. Why would any watch company revamp the manufacturing process for hands, and purchase additional capital equipment that people have to be trained to operate and maintain, and add a new step in the manufacturing process? To help preserve the lume in hands 40 years down the road, when the standard procedure is to replace them basically every 5 years? It makes no sense for watch companies to make these changes. Designing things is great, but they have to come with some sort of business justification, and there simply isn't one here, because there is no "problem"...and that's why I keep putting that word in quotes.

BTW the hand stabilization procedure I've outlined above is very commonly done by watchmakers - with the exception of those working at a factory service center of course, as they just walk to a drawer and get a new set of hands out.

Cheers, Al

 

@Archer - I guess it depends on the setup Omega employ - it wouldn't be uncommon for a complicated process to suddenly become a dream with modern tech, and without adding any significant process time, per se - especially if they're banging them out in the 100,000s. And I'm sure they already have that kit, especially in a modern facility (if they don't then I applaud their traditionalism!). But you're right a business case would have to be made - I wasn't aware of the 5 year switch, and I have no idea of the size of Omega's operation (what is the size of Omega's operation?!).

Your stabilisation method is a real craft - seriously. Superb work. I'd have big capital letters on my service order: DO NOT CHANGE THESE HANDS!

 

Here is a short video (not Omega obviously) that shows a glimpse at hand manufacturing - this may help you understand why the additional steps you are suggesting, that aren't really needed, would have a tough time with any sort of economic justification (NPV, Present value payback, or even simple payback):

My job for 23 or so years was to do exactly what you are describing - take an established process and make it more efficient, and improve quality. I've done a lot of this work, and based on what I've seen when inside watch factories, what you are suggesting just doesn't have the benefits you are thinking it does. Again your idea is a solution looking for a problem, because the existing method is not a problem.

Omega is part of Swatch group, and Swatch group is a very large conglomerate of companies that produce both finished watches and various watch components. They own Universo, which is a major supplier of watch hands to the Swiss industry, so the scale of this operation is much larger than just Omega, or even the Swatch group brands. I have no idea what the output is in terms of the number of hands, but I would think 100,000 is pretty small numbers to these people. When I have approached these large companies to get hands made, thousands of sets of hands has been too small an order for them to even consider, even if I paid the six figures they wanted for new dies up front...

BTW no one has to send me a note to not change the hands - I don't change them unless asked to.

Cheers, Al

 

Cool video---great combination of fabulous machines and skilled technicians.

 

Really enjoy seeing your work, Al. I don't have a ton of deep knowledge here but also love manufacturing and a very interesting discussion. Hope it's OK to stay off the original topic a bit further.

When millions have been invested in a production process, it probably takes a lot of "better" to overcome the inertia of functioning systems. Tradition and maintaining a perception of craft production are probably also braking functions on doing new things.
Another video for some perspective:

"You are not racing for technological innovation, you are more racing for making more spectacular watches".

I had an engineering exchange/tour at the Citizen Watch factory in Japan in the mid-1990s - focus was quartz analog movements so still a highly mechanical production facility. We were shown many innovations in micro-assembly automation but the piece-parts were traditionally made (granted "traditional" can change). I recall many machines - all lovingly tended - that looked like they'd been in use for decades and might be used for decades more. Interestingly, came across this 2018 article as part of reminiscing:
https://deployant.com/5-facts-about-citizen-watch-company-which-you-may-not-know/
See item 3: "One of their automated manufacturing lines which began life in the late 1970s to mass produce quartz movements is still in use today. However, it is updated, and the capacity upgraded."
Great visit. The pleasant 'snick, snick, snick' sound of a precision press working through flat stock is still stuck in my head.

Also found two other nice Citizen inside-views while wandering:
https://gearpatrol.com/2016/05/31/citizen-watches-factory-tour/
https://www.ablogtowatch.com/experiencing-japanese-culture-innovation-citizen-watches/

 

Indeed, when investing in a new process, the justification has to be significant, because there are a lot of hidden costs that people who haven't been involved in this sort of thing before would not consider. For example when we installed our first laser marking systems (Nd:YAG systems), not only was each system not cheap ($250K+ for one system) but it had a lot of additional costs associated with it. The layout of production lines had to be altered to accommodate the additional floor space, people had to be trained to program and operate the machinery, maintenance personnel had to be trained on servicing the laser rail, time had to be scheduled into the production planning to perform regular service, the chiller that went with each unit had it's own set of costs. Even the cost of stocking critical spare parts in inventory (carrying costs) had to be factored into the overall costs of implementing such a technology. There was also a whole new set of safety standards that had to be rolled out for those working with the machinery in the plant.

I think one problem here is that in not knowing how hands are made now, assumptions were made by user awesomemonkey about how things were done. He described the gap in the hand for the lume as being machined, when clearly it's made as part of the stamping process, so they didn't "machine" all the way through as he had assumed. You can see how quickly the hands are stamped, so using a laser to machine a shallow recess will kill the cycle times for making hands, so right away that's another added production cost, and hit to efficiency.

The key point is that the hands don't really have a "problem" as they are made now.

For a time I was in charge of the preventative maintenance program at the manufacturing facility I worked at as an engineer. Responsible for preventative maintenance checks and repairs to hundreds of different machine tools. In another engineering function, I would also be tasked to lead the rebuild of many of these machine tools, so leading a team of mechanics and electricians to completely disassemble large machine tools (some that weighed well over 35,000 pounds), inspect every part and decide the three R's...Reuse, Repair, or Replace, order all the work done, make drawings to details what repairs were needed to individual parts, get it all back together. Many of the machines I worked on were made before WW2, and many more were new in the 60's and 70's.

Many older machine tools could be upgraded to improve accuracy, reliability, and include upgraded controls, going from relays to PLC's for example. Our company developed our own technology, and we were grinding parts to tolerances in the 50 millionths of an inch range in high volume production (some lines would produce 20,000 parts in a shift).

Some of the newer machine tools I purchased had estimated life spans of just 10 years...cheap Japanese made CNC machines with rather flimsy castings. Sometimes newer is not better, so I hear you.

Cheers, Al

 

Archer, brilliantly informative! thank you.