Being honest about lume

[andreww]

I picked up a Steelfish Superocean this week from a Canadian member over at RWI. The biggest reason I bought was that the seller had relumed the dial with C3, and as none of my watches have anything beyond the standard rep lume, I thought this would be a cheap way to judge whether my other watches should be relumed. Having this watch for a few days, I can honestly say that I am both satisfied, yet not overly impressed with the performance of the lume. In my honest opinion I would say that the C3 performs slightly better than the lume that is on my UPOs. But, any fantasy that this lume would glow brightly long into the night was quickly dispelled. The C3 lasts only slightly longer than the rep lume, and at best its pretty much a novelty that can only be appreciated for short periods or in artificially produced settings. Would I send any of my other reps for relume? Only the ones with particularly weak lume, like my Navi for instance. I certainly would not consider a UPO relume however.

Opinions?

[mendota]

I picked up a Steelfish Superocean this week from a Canadian member over at RWI. The biggest reason I bought was that the seller had relumed the dial with C3, and as none of my watches have anything beyond the standard rep lume, I thought this would be a cheap way to judge whether my other watches should be relumed. Having this watch for a few days, I can honestly say that I am both satisfied, yet not overly impressed with the performance of the lume. In my honest opinion I would say that the C3 performs slightly better than the lume that is on my UPOs. But, any fantasy that this lume would glow brightly long into the night was quickly dispelled. The C3 lasts only slightly longer than the rep lume, and at best its pretty much a novelty that can only be appreciated for short periods or in artificially produced settings. Would I send any of my other reps for relume? Only the ones with particularly weak lume, like my Navi for instance. I certainly would not consider a UPO relume however.

Opinions?

How do you best judge a lume and how do you test it?

[LordRasta]

IMHO, nothing glows into the night like a Luminox, but then again they really can't be classified as lume. I may be wrong but all lume lasts about the same, but differs in brightness.

[chubbchubb]

I disagree....

I have a The Zigmeister relumed PAM 111h and no watch I own, including any of my many, many gens, even comes close to this thing.... then again, no gen PAM either

[takashi]

Well, the SFSO has much smaller lume surface area as compared to Omega PO. I would still stick to Superluminova stuff for bright and lasting glows. When it has enough surface area (especially the C3) and properly charged, it can last the whole night.

[Stephane]

Very interresting topic once again Andrew.

Recently I received a gen dial with rep hands.

The lume of the hands is really poor compared to the hour indices.

I said to myself "I should have all my rep hands lumed."

I asked my favourite modder about it and he stated that luming hands is not a good idea.

MM: "Do you look at you watch during the night?"

Me:"no of course"

MM: "Do you prefer great looking hands in daytime or strange looking hands in the daytime?"

Me: "great looking hands in daytime"

MM: "Don't lume the hands!"

I'm not sure if this make sense but honestly I do not care that much about lume, more about close acurancy overall.

If luming hands means "put a lot of luming material on the hands so that they finally look weird in daytime" it's not a great option.

Cheers

Stephane

[takashi]

Why it becomes strange looking hands, Stephane? I have 2 PAMs relumed by The Zigmeister and the hands look really good. I have done myself reluming on hands and they look good too.

[fotoman]

the relume's i have had done are to change the color of the lume itself not to get a longer lasting lume. - I did have 1 watch that gave off radiation and that was straight from the rep factory

but, on the pams i don't like the greenish lume, i like it more white- so i have had those relumed to make the watch look better

[LordRasta]

I understand what Stephane is saying. I have a black/orange 45 mm PO that for some reason has great lume. It's not a UPO but when I go outside at work, I find it hard to really tell the time because it glows so hard. Not to mention the attention it attracts when I get in the elevator.

[Stephane]

ooops,

Guys, pls remember my mother language is french, not english

I have never seen a Ziggy lumed watch and I am pretty sure Ziggy does great work.

It's not my point at all

I am not talking about experience here, only about an advice I received.

That's it...

Aparently hands with lume are noticeable...ticker I guess.

The main point is, as Andrew said, the rep lume is maybe not that good but not that bad either.

[RWG Technical]

Questions would be:

Are you certain it was lumed with Super Luminova and not something else?

How much lume has been applied, a skim coat or thicker application?

I have compared Super Lume to Rep lume, and there is no comparison at all, the rep lume dies in no time, the super lume glows all night.

The quantity of lume is directly proportinal to the glow, small dots don't come anywhere near the glow of a thick sausage PAM dial, or a sandwich dial.

Like any other mods, lume is a personal choice.

Kruzer has compared all his watches (that I have lumed with super lume) to the genuine ones, and in some cases my lume is brighter than the genuine watches.

Bottom line is simple, the genuine manufacturer's use and supply many watches with "L SWISS L" meaning Super Luminova on the dials, if it was crap, why would they still be in business and why would the gen's use it?

RG

[Stephane]

Hi Ziggy,

Can you pease tell us if applying lume is making the hands "looking different" in daytime, say under a loupe ?

I really fancy lume but I wouldn't want to have "ticker or weird hands".

Cheers

Stephane

[dluddy]

To back up what Ziggy said, all of mine that he has done glow consistantly brighter than standard reps.

I suspect your new acquisition might not have been done with Superlume or was done by someone with limited experience.

[andreww]

Zig, to clarify, the C3 on this watch seems to be nicely applied, and the circle markers (SFSO) are perfectly filled. I will say that this watch glows better than any watch I own, but certainly not a huge amount more than my PO. Thats all that I was trying to point out, that those lume shots that everybody posts are misleading. I don't believe any watch will glow that brightly for more than a handful of minutes. Standard rep lume may be visible for 5 minutes, and Superlume may glow for 10, but after that, unless in total darkness, the difference is not noticeable.

[takashi]

No problem at all. Well, the thickness of the hand after reluming doesn't necessarily change too.

[andreww]

I suspect your new acquisition might not have been done with Superlume or was done by someone with limited experience.

That could be true, but again, the lume is great, just not as great as I would have hoped.

[RWG Technical]

Hi Ziggy,

Can you pease tell us if applying lume is making the hands "looking different" in daytime, say under a loupe ?

I really fancy lume but I wouldn't want to have "ticker or weird hands".

Cheers

Stephane

If I relume hands, the only difference you may note, is slight scratches on the hands from removal of the old lume.

Examples of hands that have been relumed.

RG

[RWG Technical]

Zig, to clarify, the C3 on this watch seems to be nicely applied, and the circle markers (SFSO) are perfectly filled. I will say that this watch glows better than any watch I own, but certainly not a huge amount more than my PO. Thats all that I was trying to point out, that those lume shots that everybody posts are misleading. I don't believe any watch will glow that brightly for more than a handful of minutes. Standard rep lume may be visible for 5 minutes, and Superlume may glow for 10, but after that, unless in total darkness, the difference is not noticeable.

Some PO's come with very good lume, maybe even super lume or close to it. So your comparison is indeed correct, a standard PO is very good out of the box.

I agree that the posts are misleading, that is why I have gone out of my way to clear that misunderstanding up, and posted a number of items on glow, time elapsed photo's, stated over and over that the initial glow lasts for only a minute or so, but that with super lume you can see the watch all night etc. Standard rep lume, taking the PO out of the picture, is no where near super lume, you just happen to have a PO with very good lume on it.

RG

[Stephane]

Thanks Ziggy.

Obviously a super loupe is needed in fact too see the scratches.

The hands does not look ticker to me.

[RWG Technical]

Please have a look at this post I did up on lume, and misleading photo's

Lume reality check post.

RG

[Stephane]

Exposure time indeed!

The only way to check for the lume is real life !!!

I never really got it why members are so exited about lume shots since I could make one myself at my first attempt.

And, Photoshop can help even more

[Pugwash]

I find that if I need night-time lume, I will wear my SUG Nautilus with Tritium tubes. While it may not glow as bright as my Seiko Monster when you first put the lights out, it will glow brightly enough to see for the next twelve years, non-stop. The Seiko (and the POs of the world) are only supposed to glow long enough for a quick dive into the briny deep.

[andreww]

Yeah Pug, I wish I'd picked one of those up when you did.

[TeeJay]

Something I have noticed with the lume on my 111g, (100% untouched factory) is that following a charge under a light, it had a very bright 'initial' glow, but, any other light ie daylight, street lamp, will 'overpower' the lume, and the indices will appear as during the day. This 'initial' glow, only appears to last for a few minutes (although I haven't actually timed this decay, and, in itself is hard to accurately gauge due to my own eye's adaptation to lower light conditions) However, I can say that if I wake up at 5 AM, although the lume is no longer 'bright', it is still visible, and clear enough that I can easily read the time. None of my other watches have still been readable after 5 hours.

[andreww]

BTW, here's the lume shot of the C3 watch in question. The previous owner didn't do the hands, so you can see the difference