Black lume, my findings.

[DR3M3L]

As Stuvetjee asked me about a black relume job for his Hublot I started searching the internet for this topic.


Black lume.... Hmmmm
All I found online where pictures of gen watches using black lume produced by Tritec. So, that's where I started. I emailed them and got a negative reply: "We don't sell this lume in powders and/or pre-mixed liquid". Clear. So what's next? I found a guy doing relume jobs at WatchUSeek, but he didn't gave any details in his topic.


Let's try it out myself....
So, now it's clear nothing can be found online about black lume and it's receipts I started to try it out myself by using black powder coming from a laser printer. This powder is very light, color is very dark and you need just a needle to get your total lume mix dark grey.


My first attempt on a paper:

Looks OK in the picture.... But it's not. It fades away in just one minute, so I need to try again with different levels of lume powder and black inkt powder.


Added two drops with a new mix, almost the same color:

And here's the result in dark:

As you can see it's much brighter and in real it looks awesome. Only bad thing; it needs to be charged two minutes to keep shining 5 minutes.




It looks awesome in my opinion, so I'm going to experiment a bit more with different binders and amounts of lume/inkt powder. Also, going to try with different lume powders as I'm not using a great lume powder too.




Then, look at this GEN Hublot and ask yourself if they did a great job on black lume or not:

I'm going to experiment a bit more, thanks for reading and if any suggestions please let me know!






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Update 1!




New drop at the left, used 3 layers of different mixes.

After charging:

After 5 minutes:

Not really great..... But it glows better then my first application.






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Update 2!




You know what?! I might have found it!!!




I started the day with multiple layers, the result is as following:

Looks quite good, except for it being very hard to apply without any color differences caused by the multi layers.






So, tried something new today: a new powder that doesn't mix very well. My brother used it for protection against fire on machines.... Don't know what it's called and will ask him when he comes by again!


Here's the result:

Awesome!!!




Applied it to a omega hour marker too just to try out:

Sorry for the "bold" lume, didn't remove the old lume, lazy monday!!

I'm going to do a compare with normal lume anytime soon, but really the result is awesome! It's a very dark lume color in light and turns out to be very, very, very bright in the dark! I think this might be THE result I wanted to reach, but don't think I'll stop here.


The brightness doesn't fade away as quick as my previous mixes, it keeps shining like the normal lume mix! It's in the dark room for half an hour right now and still very bright




Really happy with the result, going to experiment some more and will soon be reluming my first watch with this black color!


Oh, and this is the lume in daylight:

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Update 3!




Just did the first relume with a new mix I've tried out a few times!!!

Lovely chemicals

My experimental watch, aka Joran's Super Ultimate AAA++ Modded fake pam . After MANY previous experiments she's still in great condition, hope to not **** it up this time

Removing the old lume...

And OFCOURSE!!!!! A lume shot














Decide for yourself:

Comparison shot with the SOSF v2 (great lume!) to show how bright it actually still is after half an hour:

Hell yeah I luv it.
















Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed will soon update with the final application on the Hublot with grain added like the gen!

- Joran

 

[kire612002]

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[Nikoteen]

So, tried something new today: a new powder that doesn't mix very well. My brother used it for protection against fire on machines.... Don't know what it's called and will ask him when he comes by again!

Thanks for doing this mate...great information....and don't forget to let us know what the powder is ;-)

 

[DR3M3L]

Thanks for sharing!!

No problem! It's my pleasure

Thanks for doing this mate...great information....and don't forget to let us know what the powder is ;-)

Thanks mate, will do asap! Also going to experiment with a grain structure one of the upcoming days to get the gen hublot look on the lume and share my mix of that

 

[DR3M3L]

Thanks for doing this mate...great information....and don't forget to let us know what the powder is ;-)

It is black granite polishing powder! Seems like he used it just to clean/polish the outer boxes with this stuff... Not fire protection

 

[psychom3]

Very cool!

 

[electric]

So awesome!

 

[JAFO]

I really appreciate you posting such a detailed thread. This is beyond cool!

 

[DR3M3L]

Thanks all! Next up is adding grain to the mix for the Hublot relume, will update this evening!

 

[DR3M3L]

* added compare shot

 

[Raddave]

VERY COOL !

Been looking for info on this subject, but not too much around.

Thanks for taking the time to experiment and also to share !


You know, NoctiLumina has some Black Non-Luminous Pigment (Used for edging and for creating gray lume)
Ive never used it but i do plan on trying it.
Ive also heard of using graphite powder, but once again, never tried it.

 

[zocker4711]

Nice Tut

I had done that yesterday too hehe

But i have try to get the Black SuperLuminova to get shine much Brighter
My experience what i have try is to mix the Black Lume Powder with C3
The C3 has a light Yellowish Colour but we all know how Bright C3 shine and how long

So i have start to mix 80% Black and 20% C3 so the Result is that the Daylight Color will be more Greyish then.
If we use the Black Lume Powder only the Lume is on Daylight really nice, but the Shine in the Dark isn´t sooooo Strong.

So your ideas are not Bad so i will try some of your tests with SuperLuminova C3 i think that will be the best choice for get an Bright Shine.

So for my Custom RLX i didn´t need that really strong Bright Lume but for the Hublots it is important

Here are the Shine of the normaly SuperLuminova Black

 

[DR3M3L]

Nice Tut

I had done that yesterday too hehe

But i have try to get the Black SuperLuminova to get shine much Brighter
My experience what i have try is to mix the Black Lume Powder with C3
The C3 has a light Yellowish Colour but we all know how Bright C3 shine and how long

So i have start to mix 80% Black and 20% C3 so the Result is that the Daylight Color will be more Greyish then.
If we use the Black Lume Powder only the Lume is on Daylight really nice, but the Shine in the Dark isn´t sooooo Strong.

So your ideas are not Bad so i will try some of your tests with SuperLuminova C3 i think that will be the best choice for get an Bright Shine.

So for my Custom RLX i didn´t need that really strong Bright Lume but for the Hublots it is important

Here are the Shine of the normaly SuperLuminova Black

That looks awesome! Well done, looking forward to your C3 + black powder tryout, keep us updated!

 

[Jeane123]

Wow this is awesome !

 

[Jooc10]

Thanks for sharing! really informative and interesting.

 

[DR3M3L]

Holy NECRO bump :surprise:

 

[mini169]

this is very suitable for hublot (black)unk:

 

[laneyk23]

That's brilliant guys. Really informative and creative. Good work

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[kevin.123]

Nice Tut

I had done that yesterday too hehe

But i have try to get the Black SuperLuminova to get shine much Brighter
My experience what i have try is to mix the Black Lume Powder with C3
The C3 has a light Yellowish Colour but we all know how Bright C3 shine and how long

So i have start to mix 80% Black and 20% C3 so the Result is that the Daylight Color will be more Greyish then.
If we use the Black Lume Powder only the Lume is on Daylight really nice, but the Shine in the Dark isn´t sooooo Strong.

So your ideas are not Bad so i will try some of your tests with SuperLuminova C3 i think that will be the best choice for get an Bright Shine.

So for my Custom RLX i didn´t need that really strong Bright Lume but for the Hublots it is important

Here are the Shine of the normaly SuperLuminova Black

Wow! It's awesome.. really looking forward to your updates on the lume you're making!

 

[egroegart]

omg. this was a year ago as mr dremel just said yesterday.