Comments on: Myth Bust Confirmed

By: J.Edwards

J.Edwards — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:32:55 +0000

Thanks for the insight, Cole. If I ever come across someone with access to XPS equipment, it would be great to uncover whether the plating does contain any beryllium.

By: J.Peter

J.Peter — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:08:26 +0000

If this was my watch and not a customer’s I would consider this, but I won’t be sending a customer’s watch out to have it tested in an environment where it could be mistreated.

By: Cole Petersburg

Cole Petersburg — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:24:47 +0000

Your procedure is admirable and more fun than what I’m about to suggest. The modern, nondestructive, dry technique would be to use an electron microscope or an XPS machine. If there’s a university in your area that does any geology or metallurgy they will certainly have an SEM with an EDS attachment. They would be able to run your sample as a class demonstration for free, or perhaps charge you less than $100 to test your sample. A microscopic image color-coded with different elements can be made, and the results are approximately quantitative. Unfortunately, beryllium won’t show up with this scan and XPS would be required.

By: Tick Talk » Omega Calibre 321 and “The Good Old Days”

Tick Talk » Omega Calibre 321 and “The Good Old Days” — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:11:32 +0000

[...] which replaced the 861. Most noticeable is the substitution of rhodium plating in place of the rose gold plating that is employed on the 861 and 321. That, though, is of little consequence. In fact, I [...]

By: rafael moros

rafael moros — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:54:33 +0000

Congratulation, pure scientific method.

By: J. Edwards

J. Edwards — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:17:35 +0000

Thank you for the comments. Be-Cu certainly does have a lot of beneficial qualities useful for horolgy. The use of Glucyder (a Be-Cu alloy) for balance wheels being a good example of this.

The movements definitely are plated. As to whether or not the base metal used to make the plates and bridges is a beryllium-laced alloy is unknown to me. I’d be curious to know as well.

By: perpetuelle

perpetuelle — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:55:49 +0000

Bravo on the detective work. What fun that must have been conducting the experiment. I am very curious of this talk regarding beryllium-copper alloy. As you may know, by adding just 2%-3% Be, Be-Cu has dramatically improved performance characteristics the only two of which I can think would relate to a watch movement would be antimagnetic and anti-corrosion properties. Sorry for the tangent, but I am quite intrigued and interested to see that Be-Cu is used in Omega movements.

By: J.Peter

J.Peter — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:27:51 +0000

J. Edwards,

Great post! I love this kind of exploratory research. I wish we could get somebody who had been at Omega for many years to tell us definitively what it is. I guess it is copper based whatever it is. I wonder why they plated it at all if there plates are supposedly made from a copper-beryllium alloy as well, what is the advantage to plating at all? Or maybe there is no plating? I’m certainly no expert. These tests just reveal more questions for me.