The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi breitling fam,

Looks like the lume has been water-painted?
What do you think?

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 3618087550

Never seen anything like that, but there is a blob of something sitting on the 10. Strange. Maybe someone trying to stabilise the lume?

I do not know. The concentration of slightly darker points of color on the numbers made me think of being water-painted, rare find


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My 2¢ worth: Although this has nothing to do with watches (unless they use shellac to lume), I have seen a similar “look” from shellac on antique furniture that has pooled on undersides due to moisture and heat.

Could be though i use shellac myself for finishing acoustic instruments and it would be hell of a job to bring it on such a small surface in several layers, because with one layer of shellac you wouldn’t see any kind of effect on lume surface.
For this kind of deep brown color, it is needed to be atleast 5 layers of Astra Shellac rubbed on its surface. . Each layer need atleast 24 hour to dry out then starting with the next layer. Labor intensive...


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Not related to watches, but just as a reference how shellac looks like on firey walnut bowl of an instrument



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You are using commercially available shellac. If you start with shellac flake as we do for antique furniture restoration, you can get that nice orangey color by dissolving more shellac in less alcohol. And when it re-liquefies and pools, it concentrates in that area. But I have no idea if they lume watches using shellac as an adhesive.

Nope i have never used comercially and already mixed shellac. Always flakes
Yes i know the one you posted, is the darker version. And yet mixed up with %99 ethanol, i won’t be the same color as it is when is flakes. Still needs some layers to be the same color as solid flakes.
Anyway, maybe is correct what you say, i would be very interested to see how they do it....


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Nothing wrong with it, all original - it just went that way for some reason.

Kurt B http://www.kurt-b.com

Thanks Kurt


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?? Like what reason? What’s the fluid blob on the 10?

We can only guess, but if somebody did something to the numbers, he definitely didn’t create patina, as the color of the numbers are stunning.

Kurt B http://www.kurt-b.com

After looking at it closely, I’ll take one step backwards, and admit that it looks like something has been done to the numbers, I have no idea what - so I won’t start guessing

Kurt B http://www.kurt-b.com

From: Radioluminescent Paint
Paul Frame, Oak Ridge Associated Universities

"While the radium-zinc sulfide mixture could be placed directly in glass vial and used, a paint had to include some sort of adhesive, e.g., lacquer or gum binder. No more adhesive than necessary would be used because the adhesive would absorb some of the alpha particle energy before it could be deposited in the zinc sulfide."

I don't know what Breitling used but it might just be the original adhesive separating out.

I remember this part of the book.
Those days many of watch producers used Arabic Gum as adhesive. Excellent material and not so expensive.
Because arabic gum mixed also very good with the luminiscent paste without affecting the original color of the paste.



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