How to age lume?

[MilSub]

I'm looking for ways to age the lume on dial and hands for a project I'm working on.

Are there any good methods? I've heard of coffee, tea and cigar smoke. Anything that works good?

[freddy333]

For enhanced patination (vintage appearance), I usually apply iodine to the lume & then bake hands in the oven at 550 degrees until golden brown (or as required)

Dial lume I leave to a specialist. However, a fine coat of matte varnish applied to an entire dial will tone down the shiny bits on dials that should not have any.

[andreww]

Those are the only two methods that i've ever heard of. Not sure how effective either method is. I would figure that the cigar smoke method would be the best looking result, but it seem to me you'd have to blow an awful lot of smoke in order to change the color. The coffee method seems like you are just painting the lume (using coffee instead of paint), and I'm not sure that you would get a natural looking result.

[Ronin]

@Freddy333 - Do you apply the iodine to the back side, or front side? Do you dab it with something like a Q-Tip, or dunk it or other?

Thanks!!!

[freddy333]

@Freddy333 - Do you apply the iodine to the back side, or front side? Do you dab it with something like a Q-Tip, or dunk it or other?

It all depends on the effect you are looking for. For the Sub, I used a q-tip to coat the entire hand with iodine before baking. This tends to age the entire hand, which is good for diving watches (looks like the watch case may have been water damaged at some point many years ago). For the GMT, I used a toothpick to apply the iodine only to the rear of the lume, avoiding the steel as much as possible.

Enhanced patination is art, not science & you are pretty much making the rules up (to suit your needs) as you go.

1 other thing - when baking delicate hands, keep a careful watch as you bake. At 500+ degrees, the dividing line between perfection & ruin can be as narrow as a minute.

[omegap7]

warning: i put iodine on my hands and it completely whipped the lume out.

[jpz5142]

warning: i put iodine on my hands and it completely whipped the lume out.

Did you use tincture of iodine or providone iodine?

Tincture uses an organic solvent (usually ethanol) and that might be a source of your problems where providone is water based.

Unless by wiped the lume out you mean darkened it such that it didn't glow, which in that case this mod was kinda of supposed to darken the lume to look like vintage tritium lume while has no glow.

[omegap7]

i used providone iodine.. 

[eosurc]

Spray some matte acrylic paint on surface... dab some with a cotton buds, then slightly tap in onto your watch hands....again, Lightly..

 

It will give you an uneven matte, polish finish on your watch hands.

[aprolexlover]

Sorry, i had to raise an ancient topic. But anyone here has any better ideas on how to age lume? slightly?

[bobandshawn]

Water-color markers work great and have boundless flexibility on a finished dial. If you are reluming you can add some pigment from a pastel artist crayon into the lume. Many colors simulation vintage. I just file some dust into the lume when mixing.

[SSTEEL]

I use a halogen lamp for raging lume.

[bobandshawn]

10 hours ago, SSTEEL said:

I use a halogen lamp for raging lume.

 

What if the lume isn't very angry - let alone raging???

 

B

[SSTEEL]

Damn spellcheck lol

[aprolexlover]

I read somewhere that using halogen lamp just brighten and makes the lume whiter instead, since tritium is being charged. Maybe water colour is the best way.

[Drummania]

I relume by mixing some acrylic yellow paint into the paste.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk