What would you do with these hands?

[M'Bob]

Originally, I was going to stabilize the cracking luminous with binder. Then, I noticed upon careful inspection that there are rust spots and paint loss to the chrono hand, and paint flaking on the minute hand, and quite a bit at the base of both the minute and hour hand, if you expand the photo. So would you:

1) Leave it as is, and just stabilize the lume

2) Scrape the rust off and re-paint the paint loss areas

3) Get the hands and luminous completely restored

4) Replace with a set of better hands

 

[Larry S]

I like honesty in a vintage watch so I vote leave as is and stabilize.

 

[bananapeanut]

I vote for option 1 as well. It doesn't look that bad.

 

[gbesq]

3. Reluming the hands won’t devalue the watch significantly and rust spreads. Fix it before it gets worse.

 

[fiberguy]

Rust never sleeps ... quite literally.

 

[Slevin kelevra]

Better set of hands. They would lift the watch a lot.

 

[watch_my_six]

I would do whatever is needed to prevent further degradation, i.e. if there is risk of the rust spreading, then stop the rust (and if that entails repainting the hands, then so be it), and stabilize the lume (but stop short of re-luming, since the lume itself still appears mostly fine, and not unpleasant, just aged, and mostly consistent with the dial).

 

[M'Bob]

The rust issue is indeed the biggest problem. It’s hard to see from the picture, but the tail end of the chrono hand has rust beginning to bubble up under it. I’m torn as to whether it’s a Pandora’s box to try and remedy it.

 

[dsio]

I’d be going #3 but that’s a very sharp watch overall, I don’t think I could leave them as is when they’re the only thing going against a very nice Speedy.

 

[Darlinboy]

I'd look for a set of vintage correct hands.

 

[M'Bob]

Darlinboy

I'd look for a set of vintage correct hands.

Couldn’t deal with the likely on-going chipping and flaking into the movement. Here with its new hands:

 

[Darlinboy]

M'Bob

Couldn’t deal with the likely on-going chipping and flaking into the movement. Here with its new hands:

well done then. 👍

 

[noelekal]

Very pretty!

 

[M'Bob]

Darlinboy

well done then. 👍

noelekal

Very pretty!

I never appreciated the visual dynamic until the hands were replaced, but it occurs to me that the incongruence of the chip draws your eye right to it, and thus you tend to immediately ignore, and less appreciate, other aspects of the watch.

 

[watch_my_six]

Looks like you replaced the small chrono hands too? And what kind of replacement hands are all of them?

 

[M'Bob]

jspdl

Looks like you replaced the small chrono hands too? And what kind of replacement hands are all of them?

They are are restored set I bought years ago. Can’t remember from who, or for how much. But they are Tritium.

 

[morethan1]

Looks better and you can sleep at night knowing the rust won’t spread.

 

[Pvt-Public]

morethan1

Looks better and you can sleep at night knowing the rust won’t spread.

Ah, but the rust will continue, just not while they are in the watch😉.