# Meteorite slices for watch dials



## PyroLume

One of the slices I picked up for a couple of projects. There is enough material here for a couple of dials and it appears machineable although I'll have to keep the designs relatively simple or burn up alot of expensive tooling making the dials.



















The material is from a meteorite that crashed into the earth some 4500 years ago with an estimated 10 kiloton blast. It has been carbon dated at 14 million years old.


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## Cortney Jay

that would be amazin!


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## CamLS

Looks pretty cool actually, though how thin could you get the slices without them being super fragile if they aren't already? The different shades sure would look cool after being polished!


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## PyroLume

The cases I want to use were originally made to work with a 6497/8 movement with a power reserve complication that added an extra 2mm to the case depth, so I figure I will have to shave 1mm off the back of that slice to get it to work as a dial. The piece itself is pretty solid, the person I bought it from uses a band saw to cut them down so I imagine some gentle 0.1mm at a time machining wont kill it.


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## cavallino33

That's a great idea! I really must commend you on your watch designs, really unique and imaginative.


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## mrsnak

Martin Braun does one with a nice dial. I think it's a pretty cool material.
Would be even more interesting to see if a case could be machined


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## Peter_Pan

Congratulations for the idea!!!:-!

Do you know what is the molecular composition of the "rock"???:think:

regards


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## Drewdoog

Yes, im bringing this back from the dead. Its been quite a few months, whats the status on these dials?


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## sgrenald

I hate to be a geek about this, but that meteorite is actually more like 4.5 billion years old. Most of the nickel-iron meteorites were formed about the same time as the Earth.

Carbon dating is used for measuring the age of relatively recent organic materials. It's got a half-life of around 5700 years, which is great for anything that's less than 100,000-200,000 years old, but beyond that (e.g., dinosaurs) there isn't enough radioactive Carbon-14 to sample. For things that are millions or billions of years old, they use Uranium dating.

One thing to watch out for with that meteorite though, is rust. Ni-Fe meteorites are almost pure iron and most will rust pretty easily if they're not treated/coated with something. You can identify a meteorite by its Widmanstatten pattern. The two different nickel-iron alloys separated during the millions of years that it took the meteorite to cool from a molten blob of metal. I'm not an expert, but this meteorite looks a lot like the Campo (Argentina) or Canyon Diablo (Arizona) meteorite.

The Martin Braun watch, on the other hand, is made from the Gibeon meteorite. The Gibeon had a very high nickel content, so it's very stable and basically won't rust. I have a 1lb carved Gibeon sphere that's been sitting on my shelf for about 8 years. On the other hand, I have a Canyon Diablo slice that started rusting less than 6 months after I put it on the shelf. Also, IMHO, the Gibeon has the most striking Widmanstatten patterns.


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## PyroLume

Wow thanks for some seriously useful information. I was able to machine those slices but despite sealing them with epoxy they seem to be slowly rusting. I am going to source some Gibeon slices to move this project forward (finally).


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## sgrenald

I wish I'd come back here six months ago. I went to the big gem & mineral show in Tucson in late January, and found a dealer who had a lot of Gibeon materiai. I ended up buying three large spheres. One was about the size of the one I've had for a while, one was about 3/4 the size and one was twice the size (over 2.5 lbs)! The guy also makes watch faces. I tried to email him a few times after the show, but no response.

How are your watches coming along?


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## jobryan

how much is that material worth?


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## sgrenald

jobryan said:


> how much is that material worth?


"cheap" is $1/gm but usually you'll see it for $2 or more.


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## moscar45

So, what ever came of this idea? I'd like to see it since I've been looking at a similar project myself. It looks like a top shelf thin slice of Gibeon is more like $5-6 a gram than $1-2. If you check this thread again PyroLume--can you tell me how thick in mm you are making them--I'd like to get an idea when shopping material thickness myself to take into consideration whether cutting the sample in half is possible to effectively double my yield.


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## Beau8

That looks very brittle. Imagine it's a delicate procedure to slice it~Cheers!


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## j3poii

Hi. I hope this helps.



moscar45 said:


> So, what ever came of this idea? I'd like to see it since I've been looking at a similar project myself. It looks like a top shelf thin slice of Gibeon is more like $5-6 a gram than $1-2. If you check this thread again PyroLume--can you tell me how thick in mm you are making them--I'd like to get an idea when shopping material thickness myself to take into consideration whether cutting the sample in half is possible to effectively double my yield.





PyroLume said:


> The cases I want to use were originally made to work with a 6497/8 movement with a power reserve complication that added an extra 2mm to the case depth, so I figure I will have to shave 1mm off the back of that slice to get it to work as a dial. The piece itself is pretty solid, the person I bought it from uses a band saw to cut them down so I imagine some gentle 0.1mm at a time machining wont kill it.


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