How To Properly Patina Your Bronze Watch

This video is in response to many viewers leaving similar comments regarding Bronze watches
Hopefully this can clear some of those questions and concerns..

Two watches featured in video

Thanks for watching..

[davidaraujo]

Peter, you're not unshaven. You have a nice Patina😂

[proctermorris]

As someone who has a bronze Tudor, also my first really nice watch. I was very taken with when I got, and still am. It's aging beautifully.

[Furniture]

Forcing love(patina), is like forcing a fart... It just turns crappy. 🤣

[bradmarcus]

I live in Florida. The humidity alone is making it darker in a matter of under a week. BTW, love the baltic blue bronze watch.

[SM-iool]

Thank you for creating this video, as it clears up many questions I had about bronze. Im glad to know that the oxidation stops at a point and stays as a protective surface, a point that many other videos DO NOT point out when explaining bronze. Very educational and I will enjoy my bronze watch with a natural patina 😊

[Spectrecontrol]

I am saving for a bronze watch, can't wait to watch how it patinas over time and see how it comes up. Growing up near the ocean aged bronze always reminds me of shipwrecks and relics of the past, I am really looking forward to creating my own 'relic'

[GinkgoJoe]

Great show, Peter. Love the new face time/desk mix.

Funny story. The other day I was wearing my Zelos Hammerhead in bronze. My eldest daughter piped-up "The egg watch!!" I thought, "egg watch?" -- is she talking about the shape or crystal or something? So I asked and she said "no, that's the one you put in a jar with an egg, isn't it??" She was absolutely right of course (although it was a year previous!) I agree with the nutty over patina you mention, but a night of egg treatment did yield some cool oil-slick colours that didn't come up with the slower air-only process.

Great show and filming as always!

[FCC]

Thanks for the warning about the bronze disease! 😮

[TheBlackguard]

Loved the vid! Actually helped me make some clearer aesthetic choices for myself. And I’m going to go against the grain and say that I LOVE the “bronze disease” aka verdigris.

[Hkram]

This is a declaration of love to bronze, beautiful, and well educated advices.
I've been thinking about getting a bronze watch for years now. Always keeping an eye on models that might interest me. I may have a target.
I guess it grows on me like love...and patina 😁

[andrewhannam.]

Bronze and copper are among my favourite materials. Bronze statues, exterior plaques. Bronze and copper DE razors, copper roofs and bronze watches. Simply fantastic! Also they are antimicrobial.

[sinjinadams]

Well, I definitely learned a lot watching this video. Let the watch develop a natural patina before you immerse it in salt water to protect it. I've never heard anyone say that before. It's good to know and makes absolutely perfect sense.

[ZzackOblong]

Great video Pete. I totally agree with you about letting the bronze patina naturally. I have a bronze Zelos Hammerhead and it feels more a part of me because of the patina than any of my other watches...

[willelliott]

Thanks, very informative. I just pulled the trigger on a slightly used Oris Big Crown Date Pointer with case and bracelet in bronze. It appears that the patina was managed well. I had been "bro-curious" for a while, and am now looking forward to adding a bronze watch to my collection. BTW, your intro music is very well done. EDIT: It turned out to be a new watch. This made me nervous enough to have it inspected by an Oris dealer, and it passed. So, I got a better deal still. With all of the crazy videos showing how to force patina, I am glad that I found your video. Easy does it.

[Horizontalvertigo]

I have a different perspective as someone who does bronze sculpture, patination is a part of the artistic process, and choosing what kind of patina you want is an important part of your self expression. I'm looking at getting a bronze watch, disassembling it, and then putting it through the artistic patination process to get an art watch end result. I haven't decided if I want to push it towards the ancient, near black bronze patina, or to go for something brighter yet though!
There's all sorts of things you can do with patina, and preserving the finish of your watch. A recent innovation in art conservation is to use a certain fungus (Cordyceps Bassiana) to convert Copper Oxides into Copper Oxalates to create an impervious to oxygen layer on the bronze patina, with potentially not much change in surface appearance.
I agree that many attempts to force patina do create substandard finishes, but I also find that a lot of "natural" patina to simply look grubby in the short term, with little guarantee it'll turn in to a nice finish with time. I get the argument that to leave it to naturally patina results in a 1 of 1 watch unique to you, but following the artistic patination process also leads to a 1 of 1 watch, with control over the process, and less "this is my watch, you can tell, because my finger print has been permanently etched in to the bronze" haha
That said, most people don't have access to pickling facilities, or butane torches, chemicals and safe disposal, &c, &c.

[gunner]

I've been thinking of adding a bronze watch for awhile and I really like the Baltic Aquascape. Thanks for the informative video!

[michaelniemer]

May I start with saying, I really enjoy the newer format with the camera flip to you for the intro and then back again to the topic at hand.

And to the topic at hand… this, for me, is really great advice and information. I have always admired bronze watches from afar, for fear that I would ruin the watch in the marine air. Knowing that it just takes time to develop the protective patina in a relatively controlled environment is rather reassuring and puts a bronze watch back in the list of possibilities.

Great job as always, and it really is nice to see your friendly smile from time to time.

[GalorOffroad]

Hello. My experience with bronze is to make a quick patina by exposing the case to ammonia vapors (no contact, only vapors) in a covered glass, with only 1 cm of liquid in it. Something like 1 hour, then a quick clean under water, and let it get a natural patina over it during the next weeks. This is a soft process, you won't have any hard oxydation like with eggs or so. The bronze only get a darker skin and you have process like many weeks of patina in only an hour of exposition to the ammonia vapors.

[bigriceburner]

Thanks to you I am going to buy my first bronze watch sometime in the near future. I think it will be a San Martin Willard that will suit me. Appreciate all the advice ... this does make *very* good sense.

[keefw]

Another great video Peter, that Baltic looks really good