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There should always be some left over on the foam, you should be able to grease about ten thousand gaskets before needed to add grease. (Slight exaggeration, but it lasts a long time.) When you find that gaskets are coming out too dry for your liking, add some, maybe the size of a green pea, and spread it around on one of the foam sponges. If you put tons you might saturate the foam and the gaskets come out with way too much.

Hi guys … I had promised that I would make a « custom decal dial tutorial » on another thread there So here we are … There are many variations of decal dials, the best IMHO being the « negative gilt » dials which gives the best results. The process I’m showing today is aabout how to make a dial with black printings on a one color background. I had a cheap quartz diver waiting in my drawers so I’ll make a Heuer diver hommage based on the 980.016 model (quartz one too). DAY 01 : It’s 4:30 AM (I’m an early bird) and I have 2 hours to kill before a business trip to Paris (I’m French) so I decide I have time enough to begin. The first part of the process is to prepare the dial plate : - stripped it, removing all the lumes bars and dots - soaked the dial for some minutes in acetone to remove the paint - filled the tiny holes where the bars and dots go with cyanolite glue - sand everything flat I sand with 800 and don’t try to get a smooth surface as I want the paint to adhere perfectly to thedial plate. Here is the result … Then I want to spray paint. I make a tube with some painter’s tape, from a « curve » with it and place it on a plastic bottle cap. I want it curved so that I can stick the dial on it without any risk of bstructing the center hole or the date window of the dial plate. So I stick the sanded dial plate on the tape tube. As you can guess from the pic below … that’s not the first time a make an orange dial. Then I place the bottle cap and dial plate on a paper sheet and spray paint in orange. I use street art spray paint as it is « water resistant ». As you can see on the next pic, I don’t try to get a smooth surface, or even to perfectly cover the dial plate at first. I will let this coat dry, sand it with 2000 grade, then spray 1 or 2 coats until I get a perfectly smooth orange dial plate, ready for receiving a decal. So I place the bottle cap and dial under a shooter glass and will let it dry for about 24 hours before sanding and spraying the second paint coat. The 24 hours drying time is really important (though it could depend on the paint you use). The paint I use looks perfectly dry after about 5 hours but if you spray the second coat without waiting enough, that coat won’t perfectly adhere to the first and you could get a granular surface like an orange peel. And here is the dial waiting under the shooter glass. On the right is a « negative gilt » dial (third and last matte varnish coat) On the background there are two Raketa 2609 movements from the 70ies, quietly (really loudly to be honest) ticking for test after I‘ve recently serviced them. Now it’s 5:45 AM so I will have a and go to the train station. I’ll sand the dial plate this evening and spray the second paint coat tomorrow morning. Then sand it in the evening and spray the third coat (if needed) the day after. DAY 02 - DAY 03 : So here's what you get after the first paint coat … doesn't look really good but no matter as there's still some work to do to get a better result. And here's what you get after 3 coats of paint, each one sanded with 2000 grade, to get a perfect finish, flat and smooth. Now the dial plate is eady to receive the decal. DAY 03 : I won’t explain anything about Photoshop and Illustrator here … I’ll only explain how I print my decals. One thing really important, from my own experience, is the definition of the design. I’ve tried several, from 1200ppp to 6000pp and the best results I’ve got on printing decal sheets were with a 4000ppp definition. So all my dial designs are done in 4000ppp. The result is really BIG files … for example an A6 template with 12 dial desings ready to print is about 800Mo. As that dial is black printing only I open it with Photoshop and let the softwre (so ont the printer) deal with the printing quality. My printer is an old Epson Picturemate with a 1200 maximum definition. As the good quality decal sheets are not cheap and as I’m a « skinflint» I often print on A7 sheets … 6 dial designs on one sheet. When printed you should let it dry for about 4 hours then spray 2 really thin coats of matte varnish, letting each coat dry for at least 12 hours (24 hours is better). DAY 04 - DAY 05 : 2 days of speed-hiking with my wife so I didn’t worked on that tuto. You can check on the net what speed-hiking is, but to summarize it’s hiking as fast as you can with really light backpacks, trying not to run (or only short runs). On a good day you can walk 5 to 6 miles/hour … when trained you can walk up to 6,5 miles/hour … and while I trained for my first 62 miles ultra I achieved to walk (no running) up to 6,85 miles/hour (11 km/heure). DAY 06 : Today is Monday 6:00 AM. It’s been 5 days since I begun that tutorial and … my legs ache and all my body is painful (see Day 04 - Day 05) The dial plate is ready and the decal sheet too. You can see that the decal sheet looks matte now. That is because I have sprayed 2 coats of matte varnish on it, to protect the inkjet ink while I’ll soak the decal in water. Of course if you print with a laser you won’t have to spray varnish as the laser inks are (almost) water resistant. First thing to do is to chose the best item on the decal sheet and cut it round. Then you are ready to go. On the next pic you can see all you need now : - dial plate … fixed on a foam board using the dial feets - decal dial … nicely cut round - tweezers - thin and smooth brush (mine’s a watercolor brush) - some « micro set » … or just vhite wine vinegar (it helps the decal to set on the dial plate) - cold water Now you put the decal in cold water and while it soaks you brush some micro-set (or white vinegar) on the dial plate. Then you put the decal on the dial plate. Here you can see why I prefer using clear decal sheets on coloured dial plates … because it’s much easier to « perfectly » positionate the decal, using the central hole and the date-window. When you’re happy with the position of your decal you use a paper tissue to absorb the excess of water. Do that carefully as you don’t want to move the decal on the plate. And here we are … everything worked fine while absorbing the water and the decal position is OK. I’ll let it dry for about 12 hours before I cut the central hole and the date window, before I proceed to the varnish finish. Still Day 06 but 7:00 PM The decal has dried for about 13 hours so now I can proceed on cutting the decal sheet That's what I do then I : - fix it back on the foam board - apply some « micro set » around the center hole, the date-window and the outer diameter - gently press with a paper tissue so that the decal is perfectly applied (no more «air bubbles) And I let dry for 3 hours more Evening … 10:00 PM Now the decal is « perfectly » applied and dried and ready for the finish Last pic for today is after spraying the first coat of glossy varnish I will let it dry for 12 hours, sand it with 2000 grade paper and apply the 2nd coat. DAY 07 : 20:00 AM … only 1 pic today just after finely sanding with 2000 grade the 2nd varnish coat I applied yesterday DAY 08 : Yesterday evening I applied the 3rd and final varnish coat after finelt sanding and cleaning And today I can show you the final result … and say I'm pretty happy That dial is so glossy it’not easy to get a good pic, even on close-up. May I say that me hpone is nit the best at shooting pics (just like me) and the actual dial is much much better that it looks on the pictures below. I hope that you liked that tutorial and that it could be helpfull to members who want to try to build their own watch dials. I’ll try to make better pics with a real camera and a better lens … next week of the week after, after luming the dial together with the hands. Then I will still have to get a case and rework it so that it could be a 980,016 lookalike. Some of you may wonder how much time did I spend to make that dial. It took 8 days to achieve the all process but I spent only 1 hour the first day then only from 15mnm to 5mn the days after. So, apart from the design work on Illustrator and Photoshop (which took me hours), I would say that the whole process is about 2 to 3 hours. I must say that it's not my first try at dial making and I've trained for 2 years now. So if you want to try you should consider spending a few more hours but it's really worth the time spent as at the end you get your unique DIY dial.

Yes, I do think of watches as not only telling of time but as piece of time as well. Where have they been? Who wore them? Maybe witness to some memorable moment in history? Perhaps this one even past my way at some point in time?

I thought I should drop this here.. Esslinger do dial blanks, for those of you who want to experiment. Follow this link for more. https://www.esslinger.com/watch-dials-blank-brass-dial-discs/

and here was today's project -

This is currently on the way to me. It's the first brand new watch that I've purchased in many, many years. No special occasion but the watch commemorates 1963, the year I graduated from high school. It is 42.5 mm in diameter which is right in the size range I prefer. It comes with either a black or silver bezel. I wanted the silver which was out of stock so I waited just a bit. If purchasing a new "anything" one should receive his heart's desire, not just what happens to be available. This one features a Miyota 6S20 movement with the smooth second hand. I've not personally seen that feature so I'm looking forward to it although, the normal one second advancement of a quartz second hand is not an issue for me. According the the USPS tracking system, it is scheduled to arrive on Monday, 4/29. Can't wait to see it up close and personal.

Why don't you just keep it in its container? It says it will not deteriorate on the web site. Just use it when you need to.

Here is my tuppence worth. Clean the rest of the watch, re-fit the barrel. See if it works. If so... stick. If not, then, and only then look at how to open the barrel in a non destructive manner. If that is not possible, then you would need to start hunting down those hens for their teeth. The only "technical" solution I can think of and this is a worst case solution, if you have absolutely no other option, would be to very carefully drill two tiny holes in the face of the barrel with a spade drill, to allow you to flush it out with cleaning fluid, then add a couple of drops of oil. That way you get some cleaning done without killing the thing.

Welcome from Perth Western Australia. I'm looking forward to your posts on polishing and finishing.

All clock repairing that needs a lathe can be achieved on a Unimat 3. It can handle long case clock barrels and the centre wheels. They do not come any bigger than that. I don’t think for one minute you will be undertaking Turret clocks.

Also you mention Ebay for tools it is worth using German ebay and using google translator and learning the German names for tools because there are far more dealers in Germany specifically selling Horological tools than any where else I know and they tend to be cheaper than any other country, they will not show up in ebay English site searches for tools when using English names and terms for tools example: Triebnietmaschine = staking set uhrmacher drehbank = watchmakers lathe Spannzange= Collets

You're welcome guys n France we say "cent fois sur le métier remettez votre ouvrage" ... best translation being "the fourth time is the charm" IMHO, so just do it and do it again and some day ... bingo My first attempt at making a decal dial was January 2017, so 2 years ago Now that I fell really at ease with the process, I'm training for the next step which is ... silk-printing

Just to show how simple it is to work with layers to quickly alter the image, here is the same set of dial markings on a vivid blue image in the same sequence. I only needed to alter one layer and pick a new colour to replace the sandy tone of markings of the original example.

Inspired by a documentary I saw about the NASA Voyager missions (launched 42 years ago, in 1977), which I was watching on the flight home, I decided to see what I could come up with in a Jovian theme. The base image is actually from the Juno mission, but it is such a spectacularly colourful image I had so see what I could make from it. The dial marker positions are borrowed from a Certina 2000 dial, which had a suitably 1970s vibe to it. I can see I could have a lot of fun with this if I can get the technique mastered. The sky and your imagination is the limit. It needs a little more work, and I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with those hour markers, but the great thing about image editors is, if you don't like it you can change it.

Its out of beat. It will run for longer when in beat.