sssurfer Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 It seems I stumbled on a new, easy and inexpensive way to relume a dial (a sandwich dial, at least). As this post is going to be long and possibly tedious I am going to put a "quickstart" section first. Those only interested in a "how to" treatment may stop after that section. Further reading is recommended for modding geeks only Quickstart 1 - Separe the two layers that your sandwich dial is made of. 2 - Remove the lume markers from the inside layer with a blade or so. 3 - Apply a white spray paint as a primer on the inside layer. 4 - Apply 3-4 coats of this spray lume paint on the white paint. 5 - Put the two layers together again with some drops of a glue. Done. If you have room enough between the dial and the case, so that you are not afraid of increasing the dial thickness a little, you may also add a disk of this vinyl lume sticker between the white primer and the spray. In this case you cut a disk of the vinyl sticker with the size and shape of the dial, then stick it on the white primer, then apply the lume spray on the sticker (no more than 2-3 coats now). If you use the sticker you may leave the white primer out -- but it would add some percent to the overall brightness anyway. Here is the result on my 203 ("8 giorni brevettato") from Narikaa: Rationale The glow powder from Lebel Enterprise (ReadySetGlo and GlowPaintPro on eBay) is an economic and effective alternative to Superluminova (SL), but it is too coarsely grained so it needs to be crushed/milled in advance to a finer powder in order to use it for reluming. The milling process is tedious and it may alter the powder color and brightness duration. Recently Lebel Enterprise came out with two new products, a spray lume paint and a lume vynil sticker, that might overcome those limitations. I decided to give them a try. Details The spray is made of photoluminescent crystals mixed in sort of a gum resin medium that, inside the can, is kept fluid by means of solvents. Shortly after spraying, the solvents evaporate, and the crystals adhere to the sprayed surface thanks to the medium, that rapidly dries too. The final surface is quite hard and decently finely grained. Not so finely to use it to relume markers on classic dials (at least I think so), but good enough for sandwich dials. Both the spray and the vynil sticker are of a good light green color, but they are quite different in the duration of their brightness. The vynil is exceptionally bright (even more than SL), but very short-term. In one minute or so it decreases to the level of the spray and SL, then it goes even lower. I do not recommend to use the vynil alone. On the other hand, the spray starts with a lower brightness, but much more durable. Spray applied on vynil takes the best of both: high brightness (even if not so high as the vynil alone on short-term) and durable. Comparing them to SL, and assuming 100% brightness for SL, we get: - Short term: vynil alone 120%, spray alone 90%, vynil+spray 100%. - Long term: vynil alone 50%, spray alone 90%, vynil+spray 100%. By saying "alone" I still mean together with the white primer. Without the white primer, the difference in brightness is almost negligible for the vynil (some % gets lost anyway), but it is terrible for the spray alone, whose brightness drops down to that of vynil alone. Here is a graph of the brightnesses of the different combinations along time. Don't take it literally, I did not have a photometer at hand -- but I did my best to preserve the relative proportions of the eye effects at least: To get those measurements I used this test tablet, where the red-lined square is that of the combination I used (i.e. vynil + spray + white primer): The instructions on the spray bottle say to apply at least 4 coats. I found that, unless you are spraying from a very long distance and for a very short time, 4 coats are too many, especially if you are adding the spray to the sticker. 2-3 light coats work better. Have some tests and make practice until you get confident with the way the spray works. About the white primer: I tested 3 different white spray paints: one declared as "acrylic", one just "synthetic", and one "for car paint". On the acrylic and the "car" paints, the first coat of spray lume made them wrinkle. Those wrinkles got covered by the subsequent lume coats, but I suggest you make a try on a test surface before working on your actual dial. Comparison with Superluminova The vynil+spray+primer combination performed as good as SL both on short-term and long-term. Below are shots at 0, 2, 15, and 180 minutes i.e. 3 hours (SL on the right). As I am still trying to figure how to get very long exposure times with my camera, I have been unable to take useful shots after the 3 hours limit, and even the 3 hours shot is very bad. But I can assure you that the human eye performs much better than my camera (especially after adaptation in the darkness), so that the brigtness at 3 and 4 hours is still satisfying, and that even after 8 hours one can read the time. Hands I did not relume the hands on this watch, but I tested the spray lume on some other spare hands and I am uncertain about the results. A good brightness was achieved, but the resinous lume medium gave the lume boundaries a slightly coarse looking, especially if examined under a 5x loupe: So I suggest to have hands relumed by a professional when possible, or to get new hands from Davidsen or so (this is what I am going to do, too). If that is not possible, then the spray relume becomes an option. Should this work arise new ideas in other members, especially about reluming hands (that I still feel as an unresolved issue), I am very interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovepanerai Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 very nice and comprehensive writeup - thanks for posting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avara Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 That's excellent. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Usil Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 This is a very good project review. Thanks very much for thinking about us when describing the steps you took. Usil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HauteHippie Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 Bravo, Marco! Congratulations and many thanks for the excellent writeup! Let me add that light coats are indeed the way to go. It is best spraying technique to spray from a sufficient distance so as not to have any drips or runs. Tape the object to be sprayed to some cardboard and start by spraying the cardboard (and not the object) first, and then bring the spray across the object (dial) in a quick motion. Do not respray until that coat is dry. Then repeat. Obviously Marco has the technique down as his results look fantastic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWG Technical Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 Wonderful write up...great job. Nice pics as well. RG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falco Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 excellent job and info, thank you so much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolli Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 hi, great idea, but i prefer super lume mix w9 + c3 + c5. cheers rolli Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sssurfer Posted February 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 Thank you all, folks, for your nice words! And please excuse me for a special thanks to our watchmaster The Zigmeister. Also thank you, Brian. Actually, a removable card tape was exactly what I used to protect the metal parts of the hands from the spray. But removing the card tape left a slightly serrated lume contour, as I said in the post. That was because the lume on unprotected parts was continuous with the lume fallen on the card tape. Separating the two lume parts was performed only by tape removal, so with no real control on the 'fracture' line. Maybe one just needs to cut a neat and straight line with a precision blade between the lume that has to remain on the central part of the hand and the lume that must be taken away along with the card tape. I need to get the nerve to give it a try, but I am a little scared from the chance to go too deep with the blade and ruin the lume and/or the metal of the hand... Oh well, that was just a first try. Maybe that better results will come along with experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yt74 Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 Awesome, very well done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Usil Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 If you removed the tape immediately after spraying (still wet) would this eliminate the fracture edges left from dryed paint? Usil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fitmic Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 If you removed the tape immediately after spraying (still wet) would this eliminate the fracture edges left from dryed paint? Sounds like logic to me. Great tip. I hope it works though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Usil Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 I know there is a trick to this that is used by those that work on cars. When they do a two tone paint job (one color next to another) , they want a 'finished' edge between them. I just don't know the trick. Anybody here have a car hobby know how to do this? Usil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sssurfer Posted February 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 If you removed the tape immediately after spraying (still wet) would this eliminate the fracture edges left from dryed paint? I know there is a trick to this that is used by those that work on cars. When they do a two tone paint job (one color next to another) , they want a 'finished' edge between them. I just don't know the trick. Anybody here have a car hobby know how to do this? Great tips, thanks! I know noone with a car hobby here, but I am definitely going to have a try with the remove-tape-while-wet technique. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archibald Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 Excellent idea, experiment, and write-up guys...Great Job!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HauteHippie Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 A fantastic post which never got the recognition it deserved!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cats Posted April 1, 2008 Report Share Posted April 1, 2008 Good tutorial. I might give it a try myself. Carpe Diem Cats Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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