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Posted

I’m working on the hands for the pilot watch I’m building. 5 attempts to apply lume and has proven to be difficult. The airbrush gives me good professional results but the lume is a challenge.

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Posted

I find it better to apply with a watch repair screwdriver and not the oilers. The right mixture is my issue. The cheaper water based lume applies much better than the more expensive lume.

Posted

I've always had trouble with solvent based lume. I think it has something to do with the climate. I live in Singapore which is usually hot and humid. (32°C, 80% RH)

I discovered that UV cured nail varnish works really well here. Just mix lume powder to the desired consistency and use the biggest oiler. It has unlimited working time. If you make a mistake, just wipe it off and start again. And there is minimal wastage, any unused lume can be stored in a light proof container and reused. When you are happy with the results, just pop it into the UV curing unit and cure it for a minute or two.

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Posted (edited)

For what its worth, I've used PLA (wood glue), clear nail polish and UV cure nail polish, all of which work reasonably well. The trick is to make sure the mix is nice and "gloopy", as it needs to bridge the gap without dripping. I've only ever used lume powders, not pre-mixed stuff, and I suspect that this makes life a little easier as you can always add more lume powder to thicken the mix, or more of the fluid to thin it.

In the case of PLA, you could also add water. Nail polish can be thinned with acetone if you need a very wet mix. I've no idea if acetone works with the UV cure but I suspect that it may, since I think the UV cure stuff appears to be removable with standard nail polish remover, which is generally just 99% acetone with a little scent and colouring thrown in to jack up the price. 

My worry with PLA is that it may be hydroscopic and if so, might cause steel hands to rust. I've no evidence to support this idea, it is just a possibility.

Edited by AndyHull
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Posted

Try "waterproof" wood glue as the binder to avoid absorbing water. Usually darker color too, for the "vintage" look. I guess. Never messed with lume other than cleaning with Rodico and/or tinting with coffee. Yet.

I am somewhat inspired to make my own dials and put a watch together myself, which would require luming the dial and hands...

  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

Those airbrush results look great! what kind of paint are you using?

 

@Tudor, when you are tinting lume with coffee, is that with water-based PVA binder? What lume tints work well with solvent-based mediums?

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Posted

I put the coffee over the existing lume material to darken it. 
 

if it has a lot of sugar in it, it crystallizes on the metal and looks like corrosion. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

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    • Your only partially correct here. Let's look at a magnified view of the image up above. Then for a flat hairspring to function correctly there has to be a little bit of breathing room unfortunately. If you would like Better timekeeping if you get a watch with the over coil hairspring then those regulator pins are supposed to be as tight as possible but still allow the hairspring the slide. With if the pins are opened up at all you'll see a dramatic timing change based on amplitude. So in our example down below initially hairspring is basically free-floating not touching anything the effective length of the hairspring is at the stud. As the amplitude picks up at some point in time they hairspring will just tide should one pin on one swing and the other pin on the other swing. As soon as it does that it changes the effective length to being closer to the regulator pins. As the amplitude picks up more and more it's obviously touching the regulator pins more and more and the length of the hairspring shortens the watch speeds up. This is where in your video at around 16 minutes he opens up the regulator pins and the watch slows down. This is because they hairspring is no longer bouncing off either pin as much. Then because the watches running slow he speeds it up just to show that yes you could regulate the watch but now you have a problem. Because the regulator pins are much farther apart amplitude is going to have a much greater effect. Like in the image down below they hairspring is properly spaced between the pins. But if those pins are farther apart the effect of amplitude will be much greater. So he speeds up the watch to cancel out the effect of the regulator pins at the particular amplitude which was dial down then when he moves the watch to a crown position which will always have an amplitude decrease because the amount of friction on the sides of the pins now the hairspring is not touching the regulator pins as much and the watch dramatically slows down.   Let's look at the other example image. In this particular example they hairspring is actually touching the regulator pin at restWhich means the effective length of the hairspring is at the regulator pin the watch runs fast. As the amplitude picks up hairspring will lift off the PN moving the effective length towards the stud which is why the watches slowing down. As you can see is the amplitude picks up They hairspring is not centered C not getting even timekeeping and the watch is slowing even more down. But at some point in time when the amplitude gets high enough this will depend upon the watch the spacing Excedrin whatever the amplitude is will be balancing actually between the pins in the watch will of course speed up and then at some point time you reach that sweet spot where it's bouncing between the two pins but as you can see it's at a much higher amplitude. So this is why hairspring has to be properly centered between the pins and the pins have to be at the right spacing otherwise you going to get strange timekeeping based on amplitude which no matter what you're going to get a little bit of that as you do have to have a little bit a spacing. At least on a flat hairspring.  
    • My understanding is that In the Etachron system the spring is only centered n order to set the stud angle when the the pins are wide open and the regulator block in at the midway point.  After that the pins are rotated in one direction only so that the width between the spring and one of the studs is 1/2 width of the spring. This results in the spring always being closer to one stud than other one.   
    • The idea is that the spring is centred between the pins when at rest. Then when the watch is running it will oscillate equally between the pins i.e. bounce off one pin then the other, as the hairspring breathes. If the spring is only hitting one pin, then it isn't centred, and most likely the pins are too far apart. Yes, the regulator pins are there to adjust the effective length of the hairspring. The spacing of the regulator pins should not affect the amplitude.  The vertical positions typically have lower amplitude than the horizontal ones. This has nothing to with the regulator - hairspring interaction. Increased friction in the verticals sucks energy from the system and reduces the amplitude. If the amplitude is less, the breathing is less. More tim between the pins = more effective length. Depending on how well the hairspring is centred, and which direction it sags, some vertical positions might run faster than the horizontal ones, and others slower. For example, if the spring is off centre towards on pin, and pressed against it by gravity, it might never bounce off that pin => faster. At the position 180 deg. away, the spring will spend more time in between the pins => slower.
    • Thank you all for the tips and insights. I'm looking carefully at the Sherline lathes with a milling attachment. I need to figure out exactly what I'd need to get in terms of the base lathe and attachments to be able to fabricate basic parts and learn how to fabricate some of the less basic ones- like a cannon pinion. Thank you again.
    • Welkom Sebastiaan! Veel plezier met deze hobby!
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