One of the scruffier watches waiting for my attention has a pretty beat up looking dial, which I hope to experiment with.
My plan is to preserve what is left of the original, but make a replacement, which given its condition seems the most sensible way forward.
With this in mind I set to work with Gimp to see what sort of result I could expect.
I used one of the ebay images as the basis for the replacement art work, squared it up and set it as the base layer of the new image.
My feeling is that the original was dial artwork was fairly simply produced, probably using three different drafting pens, as there appear to be three distinct line widths. So I measured each, and experimented with the brush widths in Gimp until I had something close to the original.
I then added two new layers. A base white layer, and a top layer on to which I am building the art work.
By selectively switching each layer on and off, I can toggle between the transparent top layer with the art work, the middle layer with the original damaged dial, and the base white layer (by clicking the small visibility "eye" icon next to each layer in the tool).
Here are a couple of screen shots to try to illustrate the process.
All layers on.
Base and artwork layer on.
Original dial and white layer on. Notice how much detail has been destroyed.
This technique allows very accurate positioning of the artwork to match the original, and lets me re-create the missing details by careful measurement.
This is only a first draft, but it looks like it could produce a usable result.