Citizen Hands Restored

[GuyJ]

Finally got the hands done.

Missing photos of the original condition, but if you can imagine the ones on the left looking black basically, with rotten lume, hardly any white showing, very poor grubby condition, that's what these used to be like on the right, which at this point had had a spray or two of white and black to determine what the best approach would be. The ones that were untouched on the left were slightly bettered with a touch of paint, relumed and sent back to the owner.

The hands have been cleaned and slightly sanded down before being airbrushed, masked to her the two tone effect and then varnished. With a matte acrylic relume done to finish.



One of the first coats I did that was OK with, but that since changed. Gives you an idea, though of how I progressed



Somewhat happier.



Relumed.



Better than they were anyway!?



Would have liked to do a better line between the two tone on the minute hand, but a bit of an imperfection aint never hurt nobody. Be interested in feedback..

[solex]

Nice work Guy your air brushing is commendable.  


I have recently done some hand painting, I tried spray painting but could never get the paint to lay down correctly.  My best result was a slightly thinned Testors paint hand brushed.  I painted the orange hand and the bezel insert on this one.

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[GuyJ]

Cheers solex. And that looks great. I forgot tho that you do your own dials right! I have seen them and they are brilliant.

As for spraying I had to have a lot of practice but in the end about 10 to 15 psi and a properly thinned paint, with close proximity to the target started giving me the best results. Not rough, no orange peel effect etc. The varnish afterwards was something I didn't want to do but I don't want the hands to be fragile when handled. Getting the consistency of that is tricky. Which is why deep down I would like to tackle the minute hand again. Owner is chuffed tho and as I tried to describe these were spares he sent to practice on. They just looked ruined when I got them.

The quote 'if it wasn't always just for a little bit more effort, we'd all achieve perfection.' or words to that effect springs to mind.

[Groundhog66]

Nicely done!

[eeki]

Nice work! When those hands are under the crystal and the watch is on the wrist, they probably look as good as new. The problem with watches is that when you try to judge the individual parts when they are out of the watch, you find the tiniest faults that are meaningless when the watch is put together again.

Anyway, I usually tend to be about 100x more irritated about any imperfections I've made personally, than any that are made by someone else, so I do understand why you might be tempted to re-do the minute hand.

[GuyJ]

Thanks eeki. The annoying thing is I bodged the hour hand as wasn't happy. Forced to do it again I then bettered it compared to the minute hand....could be never ending!