Do we have any secure dating for the point at which Omega began to copper plate the backplates and bridges (and rotors) of their movements? Either a year date, or after a certain movement number, perhaps?

Many thanks in advance for your input.

John

 

The manual wind guys will know this better so wait for them to answer, but I think it was sometime around WWII.

 

Some as early as 9 mil 8



and some with 10 mil but still .....



11 mil maybe too late.

 

Brilliant! Thank you gentlemen. So in date terms, the transition did not happen abruptly, but was phased in circa 1943 to '44.

 

around 1946. kind regards. achim

 

What was the reason for/benefit of copper plating?

 

I'm guessing it was applied as an anti corrosion finish.

 

Raising this from the dead.
I’ve been reading about copper beryllium’s other properties that make it well-suited to movement plating. It is anti-magnetic as well as having very good wear resistance.
When I open up a watch from the 40’s or 50’s and see those warm tones it gets me every time.

 

But not to be outdone, Wally the Watchmaker shows just how good he can clean off that pesky CuBe fancy pants finish!

 

Interesting you talk about this being done by a watchmaker, when a substantial amount of the missing plating is due to neglect by the owner...

 

Sorry, should've put it like "Wally the Watchmaker" to denote the fact that I don't know who stripped the movement, it could have been "Wally the Watch Owner".

But that seller on eBay has a number of watches with the same "ultra clean" movements, so I guessed a watchmaker was involved.

or a "watchmaker".

 

No worries - the squirrel used to talk about watchmakers using cleaning solutions that were "too harsh" that resulted in this type of damage...and that prompted me to indicate that professional watchmakers use commercial cleaning solutions, and none of them are very harsh:



Or even a little too harsh:



At least I've never seen any advertised as such, and having used pretty much every L&R and Zenith cleaning solution out there, none have miraculously removed plating from watch movements in my experience. If you asked me to remove the plating, I'm not sure how I would even go about doing it without using some sort of abrasive technique that would leave scratches on the movement. The reality is, the plating doesn't come off due to some watchmaker doing the wrong thing most of the time - that is a watch collector myth repeated on forums that has no real basis in reality.

This is just things like time, water intrusion, wear, and in some cases poor preparation of the surfaces before plating. I've had a couple movements where the plating just flakes off in some areas, but not in others - areas of the same part. In one instance I recall there was a defined line between where the plating was flaking off and the spot where it wasn't, and this tells me that perhaps two parts were stuck together and overlapping a portion of the plate during cleaning, so one area of the part wasn't cleaned properly, and the plating was coming off there and the rest of that part was fine.

I'm sure there are people out there using home brew cleaning solutions, but those are mostly amateur watchmakers who don't want to spend the money on proper cleaning solutions, based on the threads I've seen on various forums where people are asking for "recipes" for cleaning solutions. I use the same types of solutions that Omega does - they used Zenith when I was in training - not sure if they still do, but I found the rinse didn't dry well, so I prefer L&R solutions personally.

Cheers, Al

 

Its good that this old thread is raised from the dead...

Meanwhile 7 years have passed and knowledge has evolved since then.

Concerning the first appearance of copper-coloured plating on Omega movements: already 1941 ! - on an 18J cal. 30 SC T2 with serial# 9.245 xxx. There is a wide time-span of overlapping with nickel-plating...

Concerning the plating components:

There is absolutely no beryllium in the plating! So all this talk about beryllium-bronze is BS
And there is absolutely no beryllium in the base alloy of plates and bridges too - only brass!

The plating of Omega movement has been discussed controversely on various fora. Rob Berkavicius wrote an essay about this topic. He asked a metallurgist to find out the composition of the rose coloured plating. Although there is no mention about the methods used the outcome was: no gold at all, only copper which is really questionable when compared to newer analysis results performed in 2019. They also found absolutely no beryllium!

All this quarrel and to an fro with theories about the platings I wanted to solve the problem scientifically before I wrote about the topic in my chronometer book. I connected with my home unsiversity and finally found 2 scientists who were ready to research the topic using SEM analysis which is the most sensitive and precise method of analysis. Prof Dr Friedrich Finger and Dr. Michael Waizinger from The University Salzburg carried out the analysis in 2019.
You find all the info about platings in my book on no less than 8 pages (pp. 60 - 67).
For those who do not own my book here I give a very short summary about the most frequently used platings:

1) nickel plating 1: mostly nickel with additional 3% rhodium, 1-2% cobalt
2) nickel plating 2: mostly nickel with additional 2% silver, up to 10% gold!!
3) silver plating: not analysed with SEM but judged by colour and discoloration (not on cal. 30mm tested but seen on cal. 26.5. and 33.3)

"Copper coloured" platings:
1) copper/gold-plating: 85-90% copper, 10% silver, 3% gold
2) rose-gold-plating: 10-20% copper, 80-90% gold, 3-4% zinc - so this is a real rose-gold-plating

No beryllium at all on all the test movements!

Further rare platings mainly found on prototype movements which are in custody of the Omega Museum:
1) rhodium-plating
2) black chromium-plating

kind regards
Erich

 

Since 1986 I own Omega Seamaster Compressor (ref. 166.042/166.0042, produced in October 1970, the only Omega
with the compressor case and only square Seamaster) with the automatic movement 565.

I would like to ask you, do you have the information about the platings used in this movement?

I have seen an extract from the online Omega archive where it is described as the "premier calibre" created in 1965 but that's all
(http://users.tpg.com.au/mondodec/Offcial_Omega_Museum_Calibre_ list.pdf). No word about the specifics in the platings.

 

Going by the time of production your movement has a rose-gold-plating: 10-20% copper, 80-90% gold, 3-4% zinc

 

Thank you! So, basically it is an alloy situated somewhere by 19K and 22K rose gold by definition?
This make perfect sense to me as today Omega uses the Sedna gold (which I see as the younger sibling of the gold alloy used in the Omega vintage movements): "Sedna gold is the name OMEGA has given to a new alloy that blends three elements: gold, copper and palladium. It is an 18K rose gold, meaning that it has a minimum gold content of 75%."
This also means that the information provided by Omega factory in the recent and more distant past was true and not false advertisement. Like this one:
“In the case of the Calibre 8501, the rotor and balance bridge are fashioned out of 18 Ct red gold. The presence of 18 Ct red gold components is reminiscent of OMEGA’s rich watch making heritage as historically, red gold had been used in OMEGA movements.”