nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Post pics of your watches Part II

Wibbs

And we're onto a new thread... Here's to the next 10,000. My first post in the last thread featured this watch I'm wearing today as it happens so seemed appropriate.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

Lurching

fat bloke wrote: »

There's an orange Tag just like that on adverts. It's not yours is it? Nice looking watch.

Are those F1 bezels plastic or metal?

No, not my one.

It's a metal bezel.

banie01

A lume shot of the new to me IWC.
Very legible, damn nice IMO and a watch that is taking more and more time on my wrist from other pieces.

Wibbs

Moved off topic posts to chit chat thread. Pics from now on thanks.

Birneybau

banie01 wrote: »

A lume shot of the new to me IWC.
Very legible, damn nice IMO and a watch that is taking more and more time on my wrist from other pieces.

Hi Banie, I may have missed it but have you posted a pic of the watch in the light?

Fitz II

Say what you like about a Ceramic Sub, its may very well be the perfect sports watch. Been wearing it this week so far They wear so good, will take any hardship and even in rag order will wipe its own face on resale. Personally I like the strong step in bracelet taper. Is it boring and oft copied....certainly, but above criticism as a one and done. Name another watch so versatile and hitting all the common metric for what a quality watch should do.

fulladapipes

Legibility is an increasingly key thing I look for in a watch, so my eye has been recently drawn to pilot watches like Laco and Stowa and Archimede etc. What model IWC is that? The lime looks great.

A lume shot of the new to me IWC.
Very legible, damn nice IMO and a watch that is taking more and more time on my wrist from other pieces.

micks_address

fulladapipes wrote: »

Legibility is an increasingly key thing I look for in a watch, so my eye has been recently drawn to pilot watches like Laco and Stowa and Archimede etc. What model IWC is that? The lime looks great.

A lume shot of the new to me IWC.
Very legible, damn nice IMO and a watch that is taking more and more time on my wrist from other pieces.

This is probably my most legible watch

banie01

fulladapipes wrote: »

Legibility is an increasingly key thing I look for in a watch, so my eye has been recently drawn to pilot watches like Laco and Stowa and Archimede etc. What model IWC is that? The lime looks great.

A lume shot of the new to me IWC.
Very legible, damn nice IMO and a watch that is taking more and more time on my wrist from other pieces.

It's a 387802 chrono.
It's daylight guise is pictured a little earlier in the thread.

fulladapipes

Speedy is probably mine. That Stowa is quite classy looking. They've a nice spectrum of watches, do Stowa.

micks_address wrote: »

This is probably my most legible watch

eljono

fulladapipes wrote: »

Legibility is an increasingly key thing I look for in a watch, so my eye has been recently drawn to pilot watches like Laco and Stowa and Archimede etc.

I'm not sure if it's a sign that I'm getting old, and/or my eyesight is failing but ease of legibility was a key criterion in my last two purchases.

After having a triple-date Speedmaster with multiple hands, indices and markings and a vintage gold coloured dial Oyster Perpetual with gold indices and hands, sometimes simply telling the time took longer than it really should. If it takes more than a glance, then the watch isn't fit for purpose imo.

Very pleased with the replacements and they require no deciphering!

fulladapipes

It's definitely an age thing ! I had a two-tone Datejust which I loved, but was hard enough to read for me.

Lovely replacements. I've been humming and hawing over a Seamaster 300 like that for years, but the more I see them, the more I like them.

eljono wrote: »

I'm not sure if it's a sign that I'm getting old, and/or my eyesight is failing but ease of legibility was a key criterion in my last two purchases.

After having a triple-date Speedmaster with multiple hands, indices and markings and a vintage gold coloured dial Oyster Perpetual with gold indices and hands, sometimes simply telling the time took longer than it really should. If it takes more than a glance, then the watch isn't fit for purpose imo.

Very pleased with the replacements and they require no deciphering!

Fitz II

eljono wrote: »

Very pleased with the replacements and they require no deciphering!

Damn Eljono that globemaster is sweet.

Cyrus

Fitz II wrote: »

Damn Eljono that globemaster is sweet.

indeed, looked at one strongly before, ended up going for a dj41 in blue instead.

Cyclingtourist

I bought this mesh bracelet from Amazon last week for €17 and have put it on my Seiko quartz.
Very comfortable but the clasp is pretty tinny.

fat bloke

micks_address wrote: »

This is probably my most legible watch

What's it like when you turn off the lights? I think lume, or lack of it rather, and low light legibility is one of the most important things I look for in a watch.

eljono

Fitz II wrote: »

Damn Eljono that globemaster is sweet.

Thanks Fitz, it took me a while to decide on it but very pleased with it so far.

Cyrus wrote: »

indeed, looked at one strongly before, ended up going for a dj41 in blue instead.

A DJ was my first thought to replace the OP. Beautiful watch on the wrist but after trying one in Hartmanns, it didn't feel right for me. So this is the two year journey that led me to the GM.

DJ seemed like the obvious choice to replace OP but it just didn't suit me. Price was a factor too, I needed to love it to justify it.

I then tried on this lovely Explorer II and hummed and hawed over it. I liked it a lot but I was after a dressy watch so discounted it. TBH at the price it was going for, I really should have snapped it up, they're listed for significantly more now and I've long wanted a GMT. I regret this one...

Since first learning about the GS Snowflake, I've lusted after one. Tried this one in Weirs and thought it was a smashing piece. The dial is amazing, love the Spring Drive tech, watch felt nice and light, but lack of lume was an issue for me. Even though I was after a dressy watch, it would get worn a lot and I wanted something that had good legibility when the lights go down too.

Then passing time in Madrid airport I tried on the white dial GM with leather strap and loved it. I'm a bit of an Omega fanboy anyway, but the co-axial movement, tungsten carbide bezel and pie-pan dial were really interesting features and nailed the dressy, good lume, accurate timekeeping brief I had set. Bonus feature was the quick-set hour hand which makes changing timezones much easier. Not really an issue now though in Covid-times...

Once decided, next step was to choose between blue and white dials. My wife had the final say on this one, I would have been happy with either

Have to say though that the blue dial is lovely and really comes alive under different lights.

banie01

Cyclingtourist wrote: »

I bought this mesh bracelet from Amazon last week for €17 and have put it on my Seiko quartz.

Looks very well.
I've been very tempted by similar for both my IWC and my astronaut.
May spend some time on AliExpress later to track down an 18 and 21 for some cheap experimentation.

The Kreisler strap on the Accutron is lovely, it's comfortable but I need to replace a springbar in the clasp that keeps popping and I just haven't gotten around to sourcing the extra narrow gauge pins I need yet.

banie01

Birneybau wrote: »

Hi Banie, I may have missed it but have you posted a pic of the watch in the light?

Here ya go

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=115836773&postcount=799

Jimdagym

That’s a really great write up of your journey Eljono.
I don’t think you would have gone wrong on any of the watches you looked at.

Birneybau

banie01 wrote: »

Here ya go
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=115836773&postcount=799

Cheers. A right beaut

guitarhappy

fat bloke wrote: »

What's it like when you turn off the lights? I think lume, or lack of it rather, and low light legibility is one of the most important things I look for in a watch.

I have several of the German brands. The Archimede is the best lume of them. I'll post pictures of them over the next few days. Here's my Fortis Spacematic.

Pablo_Flox

Out for a walk in the rain last night with my Steninhart GMT.

guitarhappy

Bought the Marathon GSAR Arctic for my wife for her 73rd birthday. Made in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland by a family owned Canadian company for the Canadian military. The tritium lume lights up a dark room like a small flashlight.

unkel

Love the radioactive symbol on it

guitarhappy

unkel wrote: »

Love the radioactive symbol on it

I like that too. The case back says 26 millicuries, this photo. You probably know more about it than I do, but I think it's helium with an extra electron. As long as it stays contained in the glass tube, and you don't breathe it, one should live a normal-ish life span.

Cyclingtourist

Wibbs

That series of Marathon watches are very nice. Come in all sizes to fit all tastes and sizes of wrist. Built like tanks too. In a bar fight even a G-Shock would start to sweat.

IIRC they're the last watch manufacturer still providing officially issued watches to the US military(and to their specs) and as you say Canada. I seem to recall the Canadians got them for their coastguard. I had one of the entry level ones the plastic cased navigators. Gave it to a good mate of mine years ago. As usual the military issued stuff comes with a crap strap so I slapped a G10 on it. Like you said the tritium lume is great, by far the best out there(along with indiglo

Speaking of lume, non tritium. Gave one of my trench watches another thin layer of the Seiko lume I have. Was awoken early this morning by a feckin fox hollaring and could still read it as plain as day six hours later.

The phone camera makes it look even brighter tbh.

I reckon it lasts so long because the old dials and skeleton hands were designed for hand applied thick layers of it, far thicker than most modern watches, so it stores more light energy for longer.

Thirdfox

guitarhappy wrote: »

I like that too. The case back says 26 millicuries, this photo. You probably know more about it than I do, but I think it's helium with an extra electron. As long as it stays contained in the glass tube, and you don't breathe it, one should live a normal-ish life span.

Hydrogen isotope - one proton with two neutrons (normal hydrogen should just have the one proton as element no.1 in our periodic table

)

Very very weak radiation - we get a lot more from the atmosphere naturally - and this is of course if the gas escapes the glass capsules, escapes the watch *and* you breathe it in - might have the same effect as eating an extra bacon sandwich or something

T26 is low on the millicuries too if that's further reassurance - I was looking to put in T100 into the Sólás line (it would have glowed beautifully).

Wibbs wrote: »

Speaking of lume, non tritium. Gave one of my trench watches another thin layer of the Seiko lume I have. Was awoken early this morning by a feckin fox hollaring and could still read it as plain as day six hours later.

The phone camera makes it look even brighter tbh.

I reckon it lasts so long because the old dials and skeleton hands were designed for hand applied thick layers of it, far thicker than most modern watches, so it stores more light energy for longer.

Superluminova have even better lume out now - X1 superluminova which lasts/glows up to 20% brighter/longer. And yeah - lume strength mostly depends on how many layers you're applying - 6 is typical, 10 is a lot and the newest/lume-iest brands like Phobios use something like 15 layers of X1 grade lume - but you're probably just dolloping lume on the hands @Wibbs so it's less "layers" and more "millimetres" of lume on the watch

Wibbs

Thirdfox wrote: »

Very very weak radiation - we get a lot more from the atmosphere naturally - and this is of course if the gas escapes the glass capsules, escapes the watch *and* you breathe it in - might have the same effect as eating an extra bacon sandwich or something

Kinda TF... It's primarily a beta emitter which your skin will tend to stop. The glass of the tube or in older watches the crystal will stop it(though in any watch over 20 odd years old it's fairly dead). On the other hand gamma will go through all of the above like they're not even there. However beta is a stronger ioniser, which can be more damaging to soft tissue so you really don't want to breathe it in. In tritium tubes it's a gas so would disperse pretty quickly, I would reckon where it might be a danger, or at least something to be aware of safety wise would be working on the exposed dials and hands of old watches were it was contained in a binder. If it breaks down with damp and goes dusty breathing that in would be a bit of a concern. Nothing like the same concern as radium of course as it fires out gamma, beta and alpha and has a half life of 1600 years as opposed to 12.5 years and radium lume breaks down far more easily and into other nasties as it does so.

TL;DR? Tritium tubes are about as safe as you can get. Even if they crack, unless you're sniffing the dial like a cocaine fiend in need of a fix you'd be fine. Older binder based tritium should be treated with more respect, but it's mostly dead now. Real care should be taken with radium in old watches, though even there old watchmakers show no obvious extra mortality after working with same for decades. Promethium which was used for a time in the 80's can be safley ignored. Half life of 2 or 3 years IIRC. Kinda pointless as a lume really and rare to find a dial with (p) on it(Seiko IIRC had a few).

T26 is low on the millicuries too if that's further reassurance - I was looking to put in T100 into the Sólás line (it would have glowed beautifully).

It would that, but down the line TF.

Superluminova have even better lume out now - X1 superluminova which lasts/glows up to 20% brighter/longer. And yeah - lume strength mostly depends on how many layers you're applying - 6 is typical, 10 is a lot and the newest/lume-iest brands like Phobios use something like 15 layers of X1 grade lume - but you're probably just dolloping lume on the hands @Wibbs so it's less "layers" and more "millimetres" of lume on the watch

How dare you Sir! Dolloping? :eek::mad: I'll have you know... well kinda.

:pac: Joke is not knowing the ins and outs I ended up doing thin layers quite by accident and lack of talent, because I haven't a millionth of the skill of those women dial painters so doing it in one go wasn't an option. I built it up like watercolour washes, very dilute, with more binder than pigment, number by number, leave it for an hour to flash off and go around again. I reckon four goes around, with a fifth for touch ups. The hands got two runs. I'd reckon the enamel dial helps too. It's very pale and bounces light all over the place anyway so is a good background for lume. Though being much smoother needs a stronger oil based binder I've found.

Fitz II

You lads are obsessed with lume....do ye have lightbulbs in your houses??? Generally the things I do in the dark dont require I know the time., or take enough time that it requires tracking. Wibbs I know you are on candles only, more authentic.

26 mCi is almost exactly 1 giga Bq....which is a tiny tiny tiny amount of ionisation. The potassium isotopes in your body would give you a similar dose over time....most of us are sitting reading this bathes in naturally occuring Radon gas that is far far far worse. (but still mostly harmless at average doses)