What to do if you’re looking to keep patination under control.
BRONZE WATCH NATURAL PATINA HOW TO
(RELATED: Bronze watches are making a comeback – this time with luxury brands) How to Care For Your Bronze Watch Chlorinated swimming pool water and the salty seas will transform bronze in ways that range from subtle and bright to “rescued from a shipwreck”. If your watch has decent water resistance, hit the water. Once you’ve reached the desired level of patination, place it in the baking soda water to stop the process. Using rubber gloves, submerge the watch in the sulphur bath and watch the bronze change. In another, prepare a similar volume of water with a couple tablespoons of baking soda. Mix a few cups of water with a little liver of sulphur gel in one bowl. The ammonia levels in milk are too low for the fuming process to work effectively, but giving the watch a milk bath over several hours may give it a rainbow-like, iridescent patina. The same can be done with mashed boiled eggs. If it requires more time, occasionally cleaning the watch with hot water will give you a more consistent patina pattern. Carefully add the liquid to the container, seal it, and wait eight to 24 hours.
Remove the strap and place the watch head in a sealable container, but raised away from the bottom (for example, place it atop a small, inverted cup). EXPOSE IT TO CHEMICAL FUMESĪmmonia or any kind of vinegar will do. (RELATED: Watch word this week: Bronze) Need For SpeedĬan’t wait for nature to do its thing? Try any or all of these methods to speed up the ageing process. But in addition to the stories you can tell of a watch that ages with you, it’s also highly functional: It resists corrosion in seawater, is anti-magnetic and harder than stainless steel. When the copper oxidises, it gains a unique patina, so the more copper the bronze has, the more obvious its natural or forced ageing. What it does reflect these days is a certain amount of rebelliousness (it’s the furthest thing from precious, after all) and a hunger for personalisation. Bronze was chosen because its inability to reflect light kept the hunters better hidden. The original 1984 model was known as the Gefica Safari, named after the three safari hunters who requested the watch (Geoffroy, Fissore and Canali). From the mind that gave the world its first luxury watch in steel, it’s not surprising that watch designer Gerald Genta was the one who first came up with the idea of casing a watch in bronze. But after years of titanium, high-tech ceramic, silicon and carbon’s many composites, the latest trend comes from an unexpectedly old metal that predates even steel, and it’s the copper alloy we know as bronze. Because this is an industry that takes pride in its adherence to the old ways, many of watchmaking’s innovations have been limited to materials technology to improve precision and performance.
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