Post pics of your watches Part II

So, here's a long one, as the bishop said to the actress; over the weekend I figured I'd attack the below with all its radium goodness, so I girded my loins. And for safety dressed up in such a manner that uttering the phrase "Luke, I am your father" was eerily accurate... And helped me keep warm outside where I did most of the more dodgy uncasing. I say warm...

My 1940 Alpina 592 KM or 'Kriegsmarine', as issued to same.

Cracking little movement on these. Note the patented Incabloc anti shock jewels on the balance. Though it only really caught on in the mainstream from the mid 50's on, Incabloc was around from the mid 1930's, as well as other similar solutions(the Helvetia brand were leaders in installing same). It was a good solution outa the gate as this 1940 example looks just like one you'd see today.

/aside: After the war the Swiss watchmaking schools settled on this 592 movement for their students to learn and train on, as it was very robust, well designed and easy to work with. NOS examples have even found their way into limited run modern watches. Note too the 'waterproof' crown setup, a design that ran from the 30's well into the 50's. The case has a long crown tube that's supposed to fit into the gasket within the water resistent crown. With new seals it works pretty well too. OK I wouldn't go skin diving in it but still... Observe what this chap does(with his remarkably well preserved example);

The issue was that of all my watches I currently have this little one(33mmm) was remarkably 'hot' on the oul radioactivity scale. So i decided to thin that right down. I removed the hands and they were crazy hot, the dial funny enough much less so. So I cleaned the hands(under oil) of the Oppenheimer goo, until they came back as cold. The dial was surprisingly tepid. And only slightly "foxed/tropicalised'. These particular watches usually have really fecked dials. This one imho is on the right side of "aged"

To the degree that the lume plots would still take a charge from UV. With anything like a strong, even sparse mix of radium, the phosphors have long burnt out. (ps I never noticed that vertical black line below the 6. Looking online they all have them for some reason)

So I stabilised the existing lume with varnish. the dial printing on these is lovely, the numerals being 'oily black' in appearance and proud of the dial surface. I made up another small batch of my Seiko lume and applied it to the now cleaned hands. Then after it dried aged it with very thin washes of watercolour(ochre with a hint of a tint of burnt umber), as I found that gives them the right vintage colour, but keep 90% of the luminescence.

EG, here it is all finished. New non mutation lume on hands, but the now stabilised dial plots also glow after light exposure.

Oddly enough to the Mark 1 Human Eyeball, they don't glow much at all, but through an iphone camera...

I first stuck it back on a bund style lashup. While rewaxing my oilskins for winter. As you do. Should be done in summer ofc, but nobody does.😁

Now I get the bund hate, and tbh in this case I really get it. So out with that. I have a 40's original pigskin strap in 16mm(and open ended as these watches are fixed lug), but it's seen far better days. I have worn it on one of my 40's 'Hygenique' canvas NATO style straps, but they're a bit floppy and no one likes a bit floppy. So onto another vintage open ended leather.

The strap needs a few more runs of the Oil of Olay(no really, fwiw that stuff works like a bloody charm for reviving old leather. Don't tell the ladies, or maybe do if you've lost your love for life itself..), but it's getting there.

To be fair my post was on some sort of spectrum. 😁