I been gone for a while after the self introduction post, finally I'm back to watch things, back to DWC, back to where I started.
For those guys who still remember me, I am a tritium fan, especially when the topic comes to a dead brand TAWATEC, the brand of my very first tritium watch. I recently saw a TAWATEC EO Diver MK II on eBay in great shape, and I didn't hesitate for a second to grab it. To be honest, I might not gonna wear it, but it wont hurt for being a plus one to my TAWATEC examiner collection. And the package just arrived at my door step this morning.
Warranty says this watch was made in 2012, for a 13 years old watch in my hand, there is only one thing to do: get it new tubes. and this time, I decide to record it with photo and show you guys the full process, guess this kind of tutoral is not common on the internet yet.
FAIR WARNING:
1.I'm a noob at this, not a watchmaker, just want to show how I handel this, may have a lot of mistakes, and you are welcomed to point it out.
and I will try to use the more common tools to lower the bar, for other noobs like me;2.At this point many of you might find out my English sounds weird, yes I'm living in China for almost my whole life, I hope it won't be too hard for you to understand what im saying, Ill give you my best shot on this
3.I never posted something this complicated before, gotta check the 30 photos link from time to time, re-edit it, so until I say "-------ALL DONE------", this post is not finished, of course you guys can reply half way or any time you want, I'll try to do it as fast as possiable.
So, Let's get started!
But first thing first, if you can not put a tape on your pets, kids, or wife, just make sure to lock your door, you dont want to be disturned for the next few hours, trust me.
As you can see from this ↑ pic, the brightness of this watch is unacceptable, advertisment usually says tritium can last over 20 years, but we all know that's crap. guess where I start with?
BOOOOOM! With smashing the bezel pip window! I know what you think, and Im not crazy, it's the only way to do it, you will come around after a short time. the EO Diver MK II has a carbon fiber reinforced polymer case, it's organic, and you cant apply any organic based glue remover on it, it will ruin your bezel, I'll show you the little experiment later in this post.
After cleaning the mess and retrived the small tritium tube within (if it survives), you can see a white polymer mount is glued inside, and that's why you cant remove the window by drilling a hole on the backside and push it out, it's too fragile. If you are doing this at home and accidentally break the small tube, dont panic, this SMASH wont turn you into HULK, comparing with the back ground radiation of our enviroment, a tiny old tube's remaining wont hurt that much, but still try not to break it, after all it's a radioactive vial.
So my plan is to use a 2.5mm flat scredriver and drill it in, scatter the mount, and make sure the hole is 2.5mm in diameter, then drill a tiny safty hole on the south.
With every thing done, it will looks like this
And now for the experment:
Here comes our victim today, a Yelang tritium watch, one that I don't care about, I bought this one just to harvest the bezel pip. I applied drops of glue removers on the bezel, and will show you the damage it will done not just to the paint, but the case it self, WITH IN 30 SECONDS.
And here is what we have after I wiped out the liquid, you can see carbon fiber particels on that tissue, that's the reason SMASHING is the only option, there is really no way to remove it with out damaging the bezel. I have the window and mount in my spare parts, and I can replace it to make it looks like the way it was, but I won't, cuz there are another solution to this, a better one:
This Yelang watch may be a cheap crap, but it got one thing right, the bezel pip capsule, it's a 2.45mm diameter stainless barrel with a small crystal window on top and can hold a 0.5x1.95mm tritium tube, and now you understand why we need a 2.5mm hole on that bezel. let's began the wild harvest! Sorry can't show you the bloody process, its graphic, may offend many watch lovers on DWC
lets skip this and show you the result:
What a cute little devil eh? Even comes with a key ring, but this key ring is 2.5mm in diameter so thanks but no, it's for holding the tritium tube in place, so where dose this tube go in?
Like this
you shold be extra careful if you want to put the key ring in position around that capsule, one wrong move, and it will bounce away, there is no way you can find it again after that, you dont wana know how I found this out 
The next thing is putting tiny little bit of UV glue on the bottom of the 2.5mm hole, and push in the bezel pip. there you shold feel no resistance when doing so, because the hole drilled by hand is usually slightly larger than it should be, and before baking it in UV light, just remember to rotate the capsule in right direction, no matter you want the tube in vertical or horizontal position, that's the good thing about UV glue, you can alway have enough time to adjust the object before it's finallized.
And now I will explain why I drilled a tiny little safty hole inside of the 2.5mm pip hole:
1. if you put too much UV glue into the pip hole, the capsule will push the surplus liquid througn the safty hole, instead of poping out on the front side, and ruin everything.
2. if you accidentally baked the UV glue before you can adjust the orientation, or you need to change the tube in future, you can use a screw driver from the back side to push it out, the steel capsul can withstand the force, and that's why the safty hole need to be on 6'o clock, not just because it's thiner to get through, but for if the hole is drilled in the center, when you try to push it out with a screw driver, the blade will reach the tube and brake it, evenbreaking the front window of that capsule. I drilled safty hole on all my tritium watches' bezel by the way.
And now for the dial and hands:
based on the movement type, there will always be a release button for the crown and stem, just search it on YouTube, and here we go. At this point, I strongly recommend to get a movement holder like the brass one in the photo, it will make things much easier for you.
the first thing I wana do is to remove the seconds hand, for me I m using a pair of chronograph watch hands remover crowbar (not sure how it called in English), because tritium tubes have highier central axels than regular watches, to make enough room between hands and tubes. And as you can see, I applied a soft polymer film on top of that to protect both hands and dial face, in EO Diver's case, the dial face is in matte black paint, you do not want touch it, a tiny scrach with your fingernail will leave a scar on it, DO NOT TOUCH IT, or let anything hard to do so.
Once you removed the seconds hand (with or without foot), put it on somewhere hard enough, but have a slightly bigger hole than the tritium tube, hold the hand still, and push the little glued-on tritium tube with a flat screw driver or any thing you see fit, but gentlely, slowly. keep the paint side on top, do it in the counter way may result the tube fall of with a piece of paint job, and then your seconds hand is screwed.
No paint job damage, no bending on the hand, perfect, one point for myself!
I used the film and the smooth slippery paper comes with it to hold the seconds hand (again, not sure how it called in English, Imean the one always comes with stickers, in yellow or white..but im sure you got it) it can provides the UV glue to dry out too fast and stick on the paper. I carefully use an bent oil dipper to add tiny little mount of UV glue in the hole, push the tube in position, give it a UV bake but not too long, just long enough for the tube won't fall when you rise the hand, and wipe out the liquid on back of the hand, give it a UV bake again from the bottom, then it's done~
Looks great, and the brightness is significantly differnt now.
Now comes the easy part, lucky for me, this EO Diver MK II's dial and hands tubes are sticker holded, just like 90% of the tritium watches out there on the market. The rest brands like Marathon, they are cutting a half pipe slot on the dial and hands, usually holds the tritium with glues, but cosidering the poor quality controll of Marathon recentlly, I like the tape solution a little more. I used a sharp tweezers to lift them up, this is how it works:
this is a photo I took last year, for you to better understand the tip shape of common tritium tubes.
I think images can speak for it self, so I'll play lazy here. the same approach works on the hands as well just the hands need you to do it really slowly, or you will lift the tape at the back side along with the tube or bend the hand. lifting tubes on a old watch may cause gel comes off, that's normal, and how much left on the siticker usually still works well. if you dont have confident about is, surely you can add some UV glue, but not too much, unless you wont replace the tube in the future.
now the replacement has done, lets put the seconds hand back on it's foot, I used a wooden stick (looks like a giant toothpick) to push the hand back on the foot, it might feels a little bit loose at the beginning, don't worry, just make sure the hand is in flat position, with the top of foot inside the hand hole for now.
To demonstrate how it can be done at home, here I picked the thickest niddle from a taylor's box, feed the tip inside the top of foot hole, and smash the rear end ot that neddle with something heavy and it will make the top of foot tube to inflate and fixed with the hand.
now comes the last tricky part, the seconds hand installation. Every time im doing this kind of work, 《Interstellar》’s OST 《No Time For Caution》by Hans Zimmer keeps ringing in my ears,
but for this job, "it's nesscessary, and possible ". I used a finger condom (Yes thats how I call it! 
) to support the seconds hand and find it much easier to DOCK with the central axel.
once it's aligned, dont rush to push it all the way down, if your movement is a Ronda quartz, just like this EO Diver MK II, push it half way, align it with a marker on the dial first, then all the way down. then you need to re-install the stem to check if those hands will collide with each other, usually means your hands are bent, and to see if the seconds hand jumps at the right position. This process may repeat before it's perfet. Dont forget to blow the dust on the dial and inside the case using a blower or compressed air before put them together.
I placed the removed tubes on a film to compare with the new tubes, tried my best to keep them in the same formation, im terrible at art, but not the kind of one who start a world war of course.
LIGHTS OUT! It may appears the difference is not that much on my photo, but through naked eyes, the one on the left is barely visible, espesually in the very first 5min after turnd the lights off, so I say it's a win, one point for myself again!
Photo time! What a beauty, reminds me the good old days that TAWATEC is still around us, damn I was good... at tritium photography
Last but not least, you treat your old tubes carfully, do not just threw them away.
I use small box with recycle icon to collect all the old tubes, and clasiifie all the new tubes that I have by date and dealer. Sure tritium only do beta decay, and the range of beta ray can hardly reach 7mm in air, but if you somehow swallow it and cause internal radiation, those electron shooting at your DNA chain in nearly speed of light is no joke. Unless you have other proper disposal solutions, put them somewhere safe, away from your kids/pets can reach, and let it decay into helium in the next decade bit by bit. Nucklear comtamination are usually caused by ignorance and lack of responsbility, and history just repeat it self again and again, do not make the same mistake.
This tutorial is basic, it's the cheapest way to have your old tritium watch renewed just a demonstration based on this TAWATEC EO Diver MKII, but it's a good example, and can applies on many small brand tritium watches and most of common Luminox or such.
For those who wish a Pro to handel this job, or looking for rare colors, contact Bonding.co or militarywatchexchange, they performs such service, with wide range of choice both in colors, and sizes, it usually cost $150-$300, depending on how many tubes do you have on your watch.
For those who think that price is a little bit too high for a tool watch, you can always buy a new one.
And here I want to explain why such service costs this much:
1.They need license to inport tubes, and of cource to stock them, and report to local goverment for every single tube comes through their hands.
2.They need to pay watchmakers extra salery and helth insurance for the replacement job on nucklear active markers.
3.They need to build negative air pressure radio hazard workshop, along with geiger counter, dosimeter and other equipment, to meet the standard.
4.Tritium tubes comes in 22 different sizes in 9 colors, that's 198 types of tubes in total, to make sure they can cover most of the customers' needs, they need to stock for at least 40 type of them, and for the only tube manufacturer, mb-microtec of Switzerland, they only do bulk sell, 500 pieces per type as minimun quantity requirement, do me a math will ya?
And for there maybe many tritium watch owner out there in the world, but only so few of them loves it so much and willing to pay for a replacement, guess how many of them can reach out on Bonding.co and MilitaryWatchExchange? I say less than 1/1000, and problem is for a few customer to have their watch with new tubes, thousands of surplus tube have to be dying slowly in their warehouse, how much are they gonna costs?
At this point, you guys may wonder: Why bother to do this? Surely they have much much much easier way to earn money.
And that is correct, it explains the price and why there are so few providing such service in this world.
I will show you with two quotes from them :
"People are so happy when they can renew their tritium. It's a very rewarding job." ——Alan from MilitaryWatchExchange
"Don't wana see people getting desperate in finding a solution for their old tritium watches." ——Raymond from Bonding.co
They deserve respect.
Some may call $250 expensive, I call it charity, it gives me a chance to get my watches in rare colored tritium like white and pink, further than that I can feel how bright it is when it's really freash made from factory. I may have the experience in swapping tubes for a few watches of mine, but when it comes to my custome project watches, those I can't take risk, I turn to those pro guys for help, yes even for a guy like me. Food for thought guys.
Okay that's all I have for today, Special Thanks to AZpops who introduced me to this forum, and AtomicTom who made what I am today (even he's completely unawared of this)
Hope every tritium lover can enjoy more with their collection!
-----------------------ALL DONE----------------------
