Search the Community

Hi, a friend has just left these with me to see if I can get them going; they were his Father's and they have sentimental value. He apparently tried to get them serviced a few years ago and was told they were too old. (No idea where he tried). The first one is a Borea, which I've started disassembling. The movement has a number BF158 - searching for that brought me back to this site! An entry in the 404 Club topic for a Shelton watch. This one has the same basic movement, but in a 17 jewel version - though still with a pin pallet ?? This looks to be generally OK, just gummed up with old lubricants. It's in a well worn and tarnished gold plated brass case. The other is really strange; a Cyma, what seems to be a "Cymaflex triple date" from what @ve found on google? There are two flush pushers in the side, presumably for date setting? This one had radium lume, and it's giving the highest count of any watch I've ever had; near enough one millirad per hour at the crystal. The speckles on the dial appear to be lume particles, as the hands don't have much left in place... I'm not really sure how to safely proceed with this one, to avoid contaminating anything? It does have a separate bezel with a knife groove. It tries to run with a gentle rotation, but only 10 - 15 seconds at a go.

I Have a doubt on a vintage watch I want to service. It's an old cronographe suisse I think from the 50's. Does it have in your opinion a radium dial?

I believe Iv worked on at least 2 watches with radium on the dials. Both times I hadnt taken the proper precautions when working on radium watches, as I hadnt known any better. Am I in danger? This picture is a watch I worked on recently. And I cannot tell if its radium or really old tritium. The hand glow for less than a second under a black light.

1947 Omega, cal. 283. I assume the 3, 6, 9, and 12 are radium, but what about the grey? Is it radium in your opinion. And understood a geiger would help here, but just curious how much we can learn with the eye alone here. Thanks. -- David

Hi, my name is Bruno I have a couple of wwii watches that I intend to start a cleaning and oiling process. But I have got concerned about possible dangerous materials they could have specifically radium on dial (dial painting or numerals?) or hands. My question is if this a real concern? Do you guys have experience about working on it? Or should I just give up on them for the best of my health. i have an A-11 bulova (at least seems original) and an Alprosa, both supposed to be from WWII age.

Well I got a Radex RD1212-BT Outdoor edition - obviously so I can take it off roading in a hurricane. Actually it was nominally more expensive than the base model but offered with next day Amazon Prime delivery. Fired it up and tested it on my suspect dial...nothing. Nothing at all. Well, it did indicate 0.10 background radiation. I suppose that's good but part of me was hoping it would indicate Radium just so I could see it work. But this poses a question for me - this particular device only detects Beta, Gamma, and X-Ray. NOT Alpha. I'm no nuclear scientist so here comes my dumb question: do I need a geiger counter that detects Alpha particles to determine if I have a Radium dial?

Here is a cool piece of history that I picked up. It's a ww2 military Elgin nos with the original crystal, check out the radium burn. The Watch stopped at 2.30. It works well. I will service it soon, it has a 594 movement. The original box and bag is displayed. Cheers Graziano

Hello there, Since some time now i wonder if there are any health and safety risks in this hobby. For almost two years now I repair watches as a hobby now and occasionally i noticed a hint or two regarding some risky materials. As Beryllium for example is in many alloys in use for watch movements for example and Beryllium alloys are often described as "very poisonous". Also i wonder if any of the oils or cleaning products are hazardous... As i never enjoyed a proper tradeshool or anything like that and i could not find proper information about health and safety risks regarding hobby watch rapairing, I am very curious about your input. Regards and greetings from Styria, Austria.

Roland Ranfft is offering two re-luming pastes with excellent instructions on their use (as in Mark's video). One is based on the phosphor Zinc Sulphide (ZnS) , the other on Luminova. http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun.cgi?10&ranfft&b7&1usem&1456959600 http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun.cgi?10&ranfft&b7&1usem&1456959601 These will glow for a few hours after exposure to sunlight (phosphorescence). The early Radium luminous dials and hands glowed continuously due to the very long lifetime Alpha and Beta emission. Today an early Radium dial has no more radio-luminescence due to radiation damage to the phosphor (usually silver activated ZnS). But a dial with a good coating of old luminous paint (see below) can be brought to life again by applying a new overlay of ZnS. I asked Ranfft to test this out and he found that non-activated ZnS applied over an old radio-luminous dial did glow even after several hours in the dark when the light-activated phosphorescence would have vanished. He also reported that Luminova was also activated in the same way but with more brightness than the ZnS. Our conclusion is that if you have a radio-luminescent dial in good condition such as this one Then it could be brought to life again to glow all night long by the application of a layer of Luminova paste over the old numbers and hands. Silver activated ZnS paste would also perform well and be nearer to the original. Activated ZnS is available in small quantities from: https://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=16_17_69&products_id=218 If you do want to get into this game then buy a cheap (post Fukushima) radiation monitor from one of the Japanese eBay sources. The above dial has a radiation dose rate above the crystal of 40 micro Sv/h. This is ample for a re-luming job.

Have a look at this military pocket watch from WWII. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Elgin-Military-GSTP-WWII-Pocket-Watch-1943-9-Jewels-size-16s/164090389422?hash=item26348ca3ae:g:0CEAAOSw0AxeTsCc Have a look at the photo of the dial it looks like the radium on the hands has blackened the crystal. I have seen this before on clocks with a lot of radium on the hands giving a purple tint to the glass dial, but never seen this on a watch before and never that dark. Has anyone else ever seen this on a watch before?

I am wondering what you think about this dial? Do you think it looks like a radium dial? On the bottom of the dial it says RA swiss made RA . The watch is from 1969 we think? Sorry for the bad pictures?