Hey all, I've recently purchased a 3590.50 speedmaster from 1991. Love the bang for my buck (relative to newer models) with the 861 movement and warm patina on the tritium hands and dial.

I'm also considering customising the hands and dial in the future for a bit of variety (e.g. japan racing), for personal interest. Although this raises some concerns about how I should best handle and store the tritium parts. I'm not overly concerned about radiation - more about preserving the parts so that the tritium is least likely to degrade. I'd welcome any tips or warnings about how to manage tritium parts once they're out of the watch?

In particular I've seen hands where the tritium seems to have fallen out of the aperture. I've never seen anything similar happen with superluminova hands... do you have any knowledge to impart on why this happens to tritium specifically?

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

Thread on dial storage.
https://omegaforums.net/threads/mem...y-info-for-the-solution-in-this-thread.12213/

Hands I’m not sure, usually see them on cards

and not like this
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Lot-of-...155419?hash=item2d088f935b:g:yCQAAOSwE0pekCbAPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network




maybe @JimInOz is still awake

 

Had to stay awake to catch Mystery Road mate.

This is what I'd use.
Small plastic box, paper card folded in concertina.
If it's good enough for @Archer, it's good enough for me .

 

In short, tritium degrades over time and can flake off hands and indices. Superluminova does not, but it also does not develop a beautiful warm patina like tritium can.

 

That's great, thanks for the link! I tried to do some due diligence in advance but didn't get this far...

 

Considering this as well as other feedback on storage options, do we know anything about how to minimise flaking? Does sunlight matter? Does orientation (e.g. vertical vs horizontal) or movement matter? I'd imagine in any case the parts would be safer inside storage boxes compared to worn on the wrist - unless oxidation matters as well? Or am I expecting too much consistency from the wonders of radioactive decay here?

 

Time and exposure to light and air are the most significant factors. You won’t see too many watches with tritium lume from the 50’s and 60’s that don’t show significant degradation. Not much that you can do about any of that unless you keep the watch stored in darkness and a vacuum, but then, what’s the point? I understand that there is a process for stabilizing tritium, but the risk is that the lume will change color. It really only becomes a non-cosmetic issue if the flaking gets severe enough to get into the movement and cause problems. At that point, reluming should be considered.

 

Look at most of the 70’s pieces that have not been water exposed.

your early 90’s is fine as long as it doesn’t get water in it.

 

Frankly, I have no reason to believe that luminous materials that incorporate luminova are any more indestructible than luminous materials incorporating tritium-powered phosphor. Time will tell.

 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "degradation"...

I would not consider the lume shown here to be "degraded" really, as it is still intact and shows no sign of flaking:



Same with this one:



And this one:



Regarding the process to stabilize lume, it does not change the colour of the lume at all. I would hesitate to jump to reluming to be honest, as it will in many cases have a negative affect on value, compared to just stabilizing the original lume. Case in point are these SM300 hands:





These cracks can't be seen with the naked eye, and to relume these hands is completely uneccesary, when they can be stabilized and still used without issue:



The colour did not change one bit when I stabilized these...

For the OP, for storing the dials you are sorted, and Jim has posted one example of how hands are stored during service. I use the system Jim shows sometimes, but Omega sells hands in kits, and those come in special packaging. as I have replaced more and more full sets of hands, I have accumulated these kits, and the containers are ideal for storage:



The advantage of this is that the soft foam part keeps the hands stationary, so they don't rattle around. For longer term storage, I would want to use something that keeps the hands from moving around too much. I realize you won't have one of these storage devices, but using some foam to sandwich the hands between, then tape them up in a plastic container would be what I would suggest.

Cheers, Al

 

quote: The advantage of this is that the soft foam part keeps the hands stationary, so they don't rattle around. For longer term storage, I would want to use something that keeps the hands from moving around too much.


Plastics are known to contain plasticisers and other substances that can be released over a long period of time. I am afraid that these substances could interact with the luminous material and change it if the hands are kept in these containers for a long time. What do you think about this risk?

 

Thanks, Al. It was always my understanding from what I’ve read that the risk to stabilizing tritium lume was a possible change in color, so I appreciate your correcting me on that point. As for what I call degradation of tritium lume, I’m referring to something like this (referring to the hands in particular), which I generally thought was a function of age and exposure to air and light which I’ve seen in a number of older Speedies, including my father’s. If the cause is something else, please feel free to elaborate. Thanks!

 

Given the lack of specific knowledge of what exactly is in the various compounds, there will always be a risk.

My view is that the risk from some sort of interaction is smaller than the risk of physical damage from hands getting knocked around, but everyone has to decide for themselves. The fact that Omega sells hands like this (although not tritium - refer to point 1) tells me they are not too concerned about it.

I guess it also depends on what is meant by "long term"...

 

In the case of hands, when stabilizing the lume, the binder is applied to the back of the hand - it doesn't change the colour and I've done this countless times with good results.

How does the lume go missing from hands like that? Well, in my experience it's not just "age, light, and air" exposure. It's usually from some sort of abuse, be it a dropped or knocked watch, or a watchmaker who was careless working on the hands. For example on the chronograph hand in particular, when I am removing the hands with levers, I place plastic on either side of the hand, like so:



But also on top of the hand, like this:



Now this hand doesn't have a lume triangle like a Speedy Pro does, but these hands are on very tightly (in order to resist the forces involved in a reset) and it often comes off with a significant "snap" sound. When the hand comes off with a lot of force, if you don't have a piece of plastic on top of the hand, the end of the hand with the lume (if equipped) can get whipped hard enough to pop the lume right out of it. I know, it happened to me once (fortunately with a modern Luminova hand) when I forgot to place the plastic on top...replaced the hand but never forget again...

Cheers, Al