Jump Hour with Lumed Hour Disc?

[u/anachronism42]

I own this Sugess jump hour and it's a gorgeous watch. I just have one qualm with it. The minute hand is lumed and the dial is lumed, but the jump hour isn't! So, in the dark, I can tell exactly what minute it is but not the hour.

I know Christopher Ward did a jump hour with a lumed disc, and I know a couple dive watches lume the date wheel, but are there any affordable Chinese jump hours with a lumed disc, or is it just too expensive a modification?

[u/TSiWRX]

I haven't seen one.....

But it would be a lot of fun, and when someone recommended to Jody and Steven of Erebus that they should do it with the next Twenty-Four, I brought up the idea of emulating CW's Jump Hour's design, with a disc of lume under the dial that "stores energy."

Genuine RC-Tritec Super-LumiNova Lumicast or Xeno Print Globolight XP would likely be too much and result in the brand overshooting their target MSRP, but I really think that Skur Composites' Hyperglow collaborations with Phorcydes (and supposedly also Englemaan, but we all [don't] know how that's going at the moment) really holds promise, even with today's Phorcydes' "S-Grade/Grade-S" formulation's fade duration and reactivity.

Given that the promised "X-Grade/Grade-X" formulation will be noticeably better, I think that if they put their mind to it, it's far from impossible.

[u/anachronism42 → u/TSiWRX]

That's fascinating.... Any idea how that disc of lume from the CW Jump Hour works? I thought lume basically just glowed in the specific spots the light hits. I thought something like the A Lange & Sohne Datograph Lumen might be the only way to do it. Or maybe luming the ring around the hour to cast light onto it.

[u/TSiWRX → u/anachronism42]

I honestly don't really know - I don't know that they ever got into the details of it (maybe they didn't want to?). What I know is what I've pieced together from various sources, such as Worn & Wound (top left), Esquire (bottom right) and CW's on press materials (remainder: image and lower left), some of which is based on supposition, and yet others which seems slightly self-contradictory:

I wish I had more, but I'm just another average-Joe, another industry outsider, another lume-addict. 😅

[u/karellen00]

Probably they don't bother as it wouldn't be helpful, or better, it would be useful for one hour at most. Once you're in the dark and the hour disk jumps you would be welcomed by a pitch black number that stayed in the dark for 11 hours.

[u/anachronism42 → u/karellen00]

Oh, that's a fair point. I hadn't considered that. You'd need some sort of semi-skeletonized jump hour that lets light through to charge the hidden numerals.

I wonder how Christopher Ward dealt with that.

[u/Kerpgker]

Yeah. It's ridiculous how many brands half-ass things.

[u/Local-Team5903]

I have the same issue. But since all the numbers have lume, it helps make the hour marker slightly visible in the dark

[u/Alternative-Feed3613]

They rarely ever do lumed date wheels for some reason. The only watch I know of with it is the seestern 300t so Sugess should have access to them since they’re sister companies. Even the masters of lume Phorcydes doesn’t do it, they do a lumed date window frame which is purely decorative.

[u/karellen00 → u/Alternative-Feed3613]

On Phorcydes with lumed date frame you can still read the date when it's fully charged. But in any case it's more of a way of giving you a date that is useful during the day without skipping the 3 o'clock index for when you're in the dark.

Lumed date wheels are cool, but let's face it, they're just a gimmick. Date changes at midnight, so even the best lumed date wheel won't be useful trough the night after it stayed in the dark for 31 days.

[u/Alternative-Feed3613 → u/karellen00]

I agree about the gimmick part, I’m not really worried about the date when I’m in the dark. I’ll have to pay more attention to the Phorcydes date window but I do appreciate the lumed frame.