Great Results with experiment in restoring patina and mold in vintage watch lume!

[saswatch88 156]

Hey guys long time just wanted to share some finding with you,

I have been searching for a way to clean vintage watch lume, particularly in Seiko's which seems to be one of the top brands where collectors look for clean original lume. Esp when it comes to the 6105's, re-lumes kill the value of these, an old moldy patina lume is better than a re-lume, but is obviously not as good as nice clean white lume. These pull in prices that go for about double the cost of an original moldy lumed one.

SO i picked up an all original 72' 6105 very clean, except for dial it wasnt that bad really but one of the markers was a coffee color much darker than the other which where like a nice off white cream color, some tiny black mold spots. it was really getting on my nerves so as usual i did my research again and find out that every forum post and every person i spoke said the only thing you can do is re-lume? now i have seen pros like spencer klein clean up lume without reluming but he always skips that part in his videos, a master will never reveal his secrets....so i did something i wanted to do for a very long time but was always afraid to do.........I used bleach, YES BLEACH!

Now, this will only work on water based lume, and it does NOT dissolve it any way......you must must be very careful to only get it on the lume and NOT on the dial. I have tried it on many scrap dials and what i found is it wont affect metal dials much but it will affect matte dials, black dials, and dials with any kind of paint. I used a tiny cotton swap used for car touch paint for chips and i soaked in 3/1 or even 2/1 water/bleach solution. i made sure to remove excess and then i would carefully dab the lume plots until i can see it has been absorbed. In some cases i put a tiny bead of the solution on top of the plot and leave it for about 30 min. then soak it back up. This will require more than one application depending on how dark the lume is. I also used a dry swab and gently wiped the top of the lume plot and this removed almost all of the black mold. I went from cream/coffee color to an off white....i am trying to post photos but i cant for some reason...i didnt have a before picture but i will be doing a few more soon on a 6309 dial i will post the before and afters.

[AndyHull 1,399]

I have been meaning to give this a go too. Glad to see you had good results with it. I'll need to give it a try.

Bleach, more specifically hypochlorite bleach is what is in those expensive bottle of spray on mould cleaner you get in the supermarket. In other words, you could just use diluted household bleach and get the same affect.  It also kills the mould, so hopefully stopping it in its tracks.

You would need to be very careful with the stuff obviously, as it will affect a lot of things with colour or pigment in. 

Hydrogen peroxide used in some hair bleach products may also work, and may be more suitable for some substrates than hypochlorite. Testing on scrap dials will give you some idea of what will work where.

Edited October 8, 2020 by AndyHull

[saswatch88 156]

4 hours ago, AndyHull said:

I have been meaning to give this a go too. Glad to see you had good results with it. I'll need to give it a try.

Bleach, more specifically hypochlorite bleach is what is in those expensive bottle of spray on mould cleaner you get in the supermarket. In other words, you could just use diluted household bleach and get the same affect.  It also kills the mould, so hopefully stopping it in its tracks.

You would need to be very careful with the stuff obviously, as it will affect a lot of things with colour or pigment in. 

Hydrogen peroxide used in some hair bleach products may also work, and may be more suitable for some substrates than hypochlorite. Testing on scrap dials will give you some idea of what will work where.

peroxide gotta try that too. yes you def need to be careful with the bleach, if you get a little on the dial just quickly wipe it up or use an air duster to dry it up.....it is somewhat forgiving, but extra care is needed with black dials like the seikos...watches that have lume plots like the 6105 makes it much easier than a lumed matte dial like the 6309.

Edited October 9, 2020 by saswatch88