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Post by seikoholic on Jul 29, 2013 8:14:33 GMT -8
Hey all
I'm looking into lume repair. Not lume replacement, but repair. I'd like to understand more about lume - what it's composition is, what it's prey to, what mechanisms drive color changes. I'd like to do some checking into what can reverse those color changes.
If anyone has old dials with nasty lume and don't mind sparing them, I'd like to start doing experiments with original Seiko lume to see about coming up with remediation methods.
I personally have never been that crazy about having new glowy lume, but having the correct original color would be awesome.
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Post by Groundhog66 on Jul 30, 2013 9:48:44 GMT -8
How fantastic would it be, if one was able to just recondition the original lume. I wish you luck, hopefully you'll figure something out.
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Post by seikoholic on Jul 30, 2013 10:16:27 GMT -8
I was thinking about it on yesterday's run. I need to understand why lume darkens, and especially why it turns grey or black. I was wondering about how you'd lighten it. A very weak solution with bleach or some other whitening solution? Thinner with a bit of bleach in it, so that the whitening agent carries through all the lume? But would the bleach harm the dial in any way?
I need material that isn't important to test on.
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Chemmy
Newb
the citi of love
Posts: 46 
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Post by Chemmy on Jul 30, 2013 11:14:30 GMT -8
hopefully you would share how to relume.. i am waiting the good news..  |
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Post by seikoholic on Jul 30, 2013 11:33:08 GMT -8
hopefully you would share how to relume.. i am waiting the good news.. Well, I'm already a relumer. I'd like to be able to change the appearance of original lume. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2013 11:33:43 GMT -8
Believe it or not, I've had great luck with bleach pens whitening old nasty lume.
I don't know what the long term stability will be, but I did a 6309 test dial a year ago and it's still white as can be.
I'm sure there are other methods out there, the trick is finding an old dial that you don't mind possibly destroying
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Post by seikoholic on Jul 30, 2013 12:03:43 GMT -8
Believe it or not, I've had great luck with bleach pens whitening old nasty lume. I don't know what the long term stability will be, but I did a 6309 test dial a year ago and it's still white as can be. I'm sure there are other methods out there, the trick is finding an old dial that you don't mind possibly destroying OK, well then this question is next. I know that the black surface of a Seiko diver dial is damn near impossible to damage. Even straight acetone won't touch it, so I can't imagine that bleach would do anything to do. What about stuff like indices, or dial printing? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2013 12:32:10 GMT -8
Couldn't tell you anything regarding the dial script or printed markers
I put a small ...(.and I do mean small ) amount of bleach from a pen dispenser directly to the center of the lume itself. I placed the dial in the sun to dry and the bleach did the rest if the work.
The whitening took about 3 hours to fully work and I saw incremental changes in color over that time.
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Post by seikoholic on Jul 30, 2013 14:06:03 GMT -8
Couldn't tell you anything regarding the dial script or printed markers I put a small ...(.and I do mean small ) amount of bleach from a pen dispenser directly to the center of the lume itself. I placed the dial in the sun to dry and the bleach did the rest if the work. The whitening took about 3 hours to fully work and I saw incremental changes in color over that time. so it spread throughout the lume from a central small application? How long ago? How are the painted markers? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2013 14:17:27 GMT -8
The experiment was tried a year ago and no damage to the markers last I looked at the dial a month or so ago. It's kicking around the bottom of my junk box somewhere.
I also did the same to the 6306-7001 that I sold you last year. The lume was black when i received it from the original owner.
I recently saw it back up for sale again on eBay and the lume looks the same as when I first sold it last year.
It's also the photo in my avatar if you're looking for a reference.
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Post by seikoholic on Jul 30, 2013 14:38:50 GMT -8
holy god
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Chemmy
Newb
the citi of love
Posts: 46
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Post by Chemmy on Jul 31, 2013 7:06:32 GMT -8
The experiment was tried a year ago and no damage to the markers last I looked at the dial a month or so ago. It's kicking around the bottom of my junk box somewhere. I also did the same to the 6306-7001 that I sold you last year. The lume was black when i received it from the original owner. I recently saw it back up for sale again on eBay and the lume looks the same as when I first sold it last year. It's also the photo in my avatar if you're looking for a reference. Wow! great job! it was really dirty lume before and now look clean? what kind of pen whitener you did? |
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Post by msm5 on Sept 15, 2013 18:52:01 GMT -8
Couldn't tell you anything regarding the dial script or printed markers I put a small ...(.and I do mean small ) amount of bleach from a pen dispenser directly to the center of the lume itself. I placed the dial in the sun to dry and the bleach did the rest if the work. The whitening took about 3 hours to fully work and I saw incremental changes in color over that time. Sorry to resurrect this one, but it's taken a while to catch up on all the posts on the site. This seems like a great solution. Have you tried it on hands? Also, can you explain what a pen dispenser is. Thanks! |
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Post by msm5 on Sept 20, 2013 15:23:56 GMT -8
Couldn't tell you anything regarding the dial script or printed markers I put a small ...(.and I do mean small ) amount of bleach from a pen dispenser directly to the center of the lume itself. I placed the dial in the sun to dry and the bleach did the rest if the work. The whitening took about 3 hours to fully work and I saw incremental changes in color over that time. Sorry to resurrect this one, but it's taken a while to catch up on all the posts on the site. This seems like a great solution. Have you tried it on hands? Also, can you explain what a pen dispenser is. Thanks! Bumping this one again. What's a pen dispenser? Might be giving this a shot this weekend. Thanks! |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2013 17:00:45 GMT -8
Sorry to resurrect this one, but it's taken a while to catch up on all the posts on the site. This seems like a great solution. Have you tried it on hands? Also, can you explain what a pen dispenser is. Thanks! Bumping this one again. What's a pen dispenser? Might be giving this a shot this weekend. Thanks! The 'pen dispenser' I have is made by TIDE. It is advertized as an instant stain remover. I tried it on some lume; dial and hands. This stuff isn't what you want to use...it turns the lume and gunge to sticky muck machine-gun I suspect that pure bleach would be a much better alternative smiley-cool11 |
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Post by msm5 on Sept 21, 2013 13:36:53 GMT -8
Bumping this one again. What's a pen dispenser? Might be giving this a shot this weekend. Thanks! The 'pen dispenser' I have is made by TIDE. It is advertized as an instant stain remover. I tried it on some lume; dial and hands. This stuff isn't what you want to use...it turns the lume and gunge to sticky muck machine-gun I suspect that pure bleach would be a much better alternative smiley-cool11 Thanks for the advice. I'm honestly not sure what to do for two reasons. First, I like the aged look of the dial, but not of the hands so much. Second, if I screw it up I'll be pissed. Such a dilemma!  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2013 17:45:31 GMT -8
The 'pen dispenser' I have is made by TIDE. It is advertized as an instant stain remover. I tried it on some lume; dial and hands. This stuff isn't what you want to use...it turns the lume and gunge to sticky muck machine-gun I suspect that pure bleach would be a much better alternative smiley-cool11 Thanks for the advice. I'm honestly not sure what to do for two reasons. First, I like the aged look of the dial, but not of the hands so much. Second, if I screw it up I'll be pissed. Such a dilemma! Leaving the dial alone is probably best since it looks pretty good. Changing the hand lume is easy and with a little experimentation you can probably match the nice grey/tan colour of the dial markers. There are any number of stains that can be used including coffee, tea, iodine, blueberry juice etc. It's just a matter of trying out various pigments. If you mess up; no problem; just clean the hands and the lume off with laquer thinner and have another go at it. Better still just try mixing up some lume and paint it on to an old stainless steel case back so you can put several samples side by side. Use these staining agents after painting the lume on as I don't know what they would do to the resin mixture before it has hardened off. You could also go to an arts supply store and find various coloured powdered pigments to try out. These should not cause any problems with the resin so you can mix them right in. |
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Post by msm5 on Sept 22, 2013 15:41:22 GMT -8
Thanks for the great advice, I've got an extra extra-crappy set of hands to experiment on until I get it right.
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