Making a custom dial

[AndyHull]

I just did a quick experiment, based on a random rather scruffy and slightly out of focus old 1930s Rolex dial from the internet, which is hopefully long since out of copyright.

As well as the original image, there are two converted files here.

The first is a jpg (raster based) the second is an SVG (vector based).

For a first attempt I think they look OK, and gave me a rough idea of the work flow.

I suspect that they could be improved by printing out at A4 size and hand finished, then re-photographed, and converted to SVG, then finally scaled to the dimensions required to produce a sharp image. There are other tricks that could be employed, including perhaps anti-aliasing and de-speckling in the photo editor of your choice (in my case Gimp).

My work flow was to clean up the image as best I could, convert to 2 bit colour (Full tone black and white), then convert to svg using a  Linux tool developed for that purpose called potrace (On Ubuntu and other Debian based Linux distros, install with sudo apt-get install potrace)

Clearly the original dial left a lot to be desired, but the basic idea looks sound.

 

 

 

   RolexOysterMonoChrome2.svg

Click on the .svg link and your browser *may* be able to display it.

Edited February 13, 2019 by AndyHull

[Nucejoe]

Hi, Manodero 

The pic ahowing the single dial is available rather cheap here, the aim is to it,s quality.

The pic showing two dials are genuine Oris , and to be refurbished

Quantity is eight hundered, which mqy make a diference in choosing the best option.

Joe 

[Nucejoe]

Hi, Manodero 

The pic ahowing the single dial is available rather cheap here, the aim is to it,s quality.

The pic showing two dials are genuine Oris , and to be refurbished

Quantity is eight hundered, which mqy make a diference in choosing the best option.

Joe 

[Nucejoe]

Hi, Manodero 

The pic ahowing the single dial is available rather cheap here, the aim is to it,s quality.

The pic showing two dials are genuine Oris , and to be refurbished

Quantity is eight hundered, which mqy make a diference in choosing the best option.

Joe 

[Nucejoe]

Hi, Manodero 

The pic ahowing the single dial is available rather cheap here, the aim is to it,s quality.

The pic showing two dials are genuine Oris , and to be refurbished

Quantity is eight hundered, which mqy make a diference in choosing the best option.

Joe 

[manodeoro]

12 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

Hi, Manodero 

The pic ahowing the single dial is available rather cheap here, the aim is to it,s quality.

The pic showing two dials are genuine Oris , and to be refurbished

I must agree that the quality of the refurbished one is pretty low.

Printing is not good and, most important, the design of the numbers and letters is not even accurate ... plus the refurbished one even lack the "SWISS MADE" mention.

I'm curious to know how much they charge in Tehran for such a badly redone dial ... would you mind to tell us Nucejoe ?

I've made a comparison pic to make the differences as obvious as possible.

In fact I wouldn't call the redone one "refurbished" ... "reprinted" would be more correct.

It is really possible to redo such a dial with decal and there are 2 ways to proceed :

1 - redesign everything on Photoshop or Illustrator to reproduce the original dial as close as possible

2a - print in black on white decal sheet and just put it on the dial plate ... you'll get something looking too new because the white parts will be "too white"

2b - spray paint the dial plate in white, age it a little, print the dial in black on a clear decal sheet and put it on the dial, finish with semi-glossy spray varnish ... that way the white parts will look "old" because they'll look more "off white" than "white"

The problem with both methods is you wont get any "3D effect" on the white printings ... everything will look flat on close inspection.

But when cased you could get a good looking result ... if you're handy at luming because those tiny numbers are "shitty" to relume.

The only 2 ways to get an almost perfect  result are silk printing and pad printing ...

- low "3D effect" and "woven" printing (something you can only see with a magnifier) with silk printing

- high "3D effect" and perfect printing with pad printing

[Nucejoe]

Hi manodeoro,   The reperinted one is vintage, the plate is not genuine either. I don,t know where they were made. Plenty of surplus available at price of a coke or less each.

 I don,t have a sample of what the dude in tehran prints,  the print on those look good, the paint however is not shiny, you get about five of them for the price of a lunch in london.

Regards

 

[AndyHull]

For a bit of fun, while the thunderstorms have me confined to the laptop I had a quick crack at tidying up that dial.

A higher quality starting image image would be a help, but here is a quick and dirty conversion.

Note, the file I am working on to produce these results is 150dpi and around 65Mb, and the version here is lower res. I don't think I can post 65Mb images here. Even if it were possible, some of the readers are looking at this on their phones, and wouldn't appreciate the 65Mb download.

The SVG version is probably the more interesting of the two

Certainly with the right starting image quality and some careful editing, you should be able to come up with a pretty usable result. 

Note: I'm not happy with the numerals yet, but I thought it worth posting as is, just so you can see the technique.

OrisBlackSecondsAtSix1940s150dpi.svg

OrisBlackSecondsAtSix1940s.ppm

The idea behind using an SVG scale-able image rather than a raster based one, being the fact that you can mess with the size of it (within limits), without introducing too many weird raster based artifacts, and without having to fiddle with anti-aliasing.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2019 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

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.

Edited February 15, 2019 by AndyHull

[TexasDon]

Regarding Andy's post above: I can't do it but that doesn't mean I can't admire and appreciate it.

[Nucejoe]

7 hours ago, TexasDon said:

Regarding Andy's post above: I can't do it but that doesn't mean I can't admire and appreciate it.

I don,t even understand a word of this know-how by Andy and manodeoro and not only apprecitae their Art I would say, but want all the dials .. .

 

[AndyHull]

Here is the "final" draft of the Junhans art deco dial. I say final draft, but clearly you could tinker with and refine this more, but it is good enough for the purposes of refining the workflow.

 

If you want to use these files, you can do what you wish with them, within the bounds of the GPM3.0 license.

https://opensource.org/licenses/GPL-3.0

JunhansArtDecoSilverRectSecondsAtSix1930NewArtwork.ppm

JunhansArtDecoSilverRectSecondsAtSix1930NewArtwork.svg

[AndyHull]

I suspect that when new, the watch face would have looked more like this.

The lume is most likely radium based, and this may have been optional. There was probably a lume free version, with white digit colouring I would suspect.

Edited February 16, 2019 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

I did a quick search on the net, and found this remarkably similar example. Strangely, at $409.00 it would't make it in to the 404 club, without severely bending the rules.

 

[AndyHull]

More dial tricks. This time trying to figure out if a dial would work with a particular watch.

This sorry looking specimen is in need of a new smile. It is a Titus, so I looked online for pictures of something matching, but the closest I could find was fairly close, but is it the right relative dimensions?
 

This looks the part, so lets try a little image manipulation. I used the paintbrush tool to remove the hands. Flattened the image to greyscale, pasted it as a new layer, scaled it to sit in the correct location and added a transparency mask.

 

.. and as you can see in the slightly ghostly image above, the dial looks like a pretty good match, so next I can explore the possibility of creating a couple of transparent decals to fit the main dial and the sub second one.

All of this of course when I find some spare time after I get back from my holidays. This could turn out to be a long term project, so I thought it best to show the technique while the idea is still fresh. 

One technical rather than artistic question, the hands and glass, I can probably locate, but if I need the balance pivot, or an entire balance, what are the chances of finding one, or fixing the pivot on the existing one for that matter? 

Edited February 17, 2019 by AndyHull

[manodeoro]

On 2/17/2019 at 2:22 PM, AndyHull said:

More dial tricks. This time trying to figure out if a dial would work with a particular watch.

This sorry looking specimen is in need of a new smile. It is a Titus, so I looked online for pictures of something matching, but the closest I could find was fairly close, but is it the right relative dimensions?
 

This looks the part, so lets try a little image manipulation. I used the paintbrush tool to remove the hands. Flattened the image to greyscale, pasted it as a new layer, scaled it to sit in the correct location and added a transparency mask.

  

.. and as you can see in the slightly ghostly image above, the dial looks like a pretty good match, so next I can explore the possibility of creating a couple of transparent decals to fit the main dial and the sub second one.

 All of this of course when I find some spare time after I get back from my holidays. This could turn out to be a long term project, so I thought it best to show the technique while the idea is still fresh. 

One technical rather than artistic question, the hands and glass, I can probably locate, but if I need the balance pivot, or an entire balance, what are the chances of finding one, or fixing the pivot on the existing one for that matter? 

You really don't need to have "a couple of decals" to do such a dial, though the seconds subdial at 6:00 and the chapter ring are recessed from the main dial plate level.

What you need to do  is to put your decal on the plate, let it dry for 24 hours, then moist the decal again with white vinegar over the recessed areas, gently press the decal down with a paper tissue and let dry again.

You can do that everal times until you get a "perfect" result.

 

[Nucejoe]

Genuine plates are gold plated or golden color.

[Nucejoe]

Or this 

[manodeoro]

1 hour ago, Nucejoe said:

Genuine plates are gold plated or golden color.

I would say polished brass ... or copper

 

Is it just me or you have 2 sizes of dials ?

As far as I know the Oris pointer date with sub second came in 2 sizes with 2 different cases :

- 28 mm - case flat between the lugs

- 33 (32) mm - case rounded between the lugs

[Nucejoe]

I got four pointer sizes and a fifth which may be of the same diameter, but different features in my collection( havn,t measured) , there also differ by the type of indicators ( embossed & prints) and dial plate ( flat& domed) and recressed subsecond.There are ladies size, boys or unisex size, Gents and two different jumbo size. Ladies size come in cases rounded beteewn legs, I mean strap pin holders. 

Anvil once suggested I post sample pix from my collection and I did promissed to, but so far I have failed to delivered. 

 

 

 

 

[Nucejoe]

I have four different sizes and a fifth which may be of the same diameter, but different features ( havn,t measured or compared the two largest) , there also differ by the type of indicators ( embossed & prints) and dial plate ( flat& domed) and different recressed subsecond.There are ladies size, boys or unisex size, Gents and two different jumbo sizes. Ladies size come in cases rounded beteewn legs, I mean between strap pin holders.

Anvil once suggested I post sample pix from my vintage collection and I did promissed to, which so far  have failed to delivered. 

 

 

 

 

 

[manodeoro]

I got four pointer sizes and a fifth which may be of the same diameter, but different features in my collection( havn,t measured) , there also differ by the type of indicators ( embossed & prints) and dial plate ( flat& domed) and recressed subsecond.There are ladies size, boys or unisex size, Gents and two different jumbo size. Ladies size come in cases rounded beteewn legs, I mean strap pin holders.[emoji38] [emoji14]
Anvil once suggested I post sample pix from my collection and I did promissed to, but so far I have failed to delivered. 
 
 
 
 

Now you must show us some pics [emoji6]

Envoyé de mon Moto G (5) Plus en utilisant Tapatalk

[manodeoro]

I had said I would do a complete "custom decal dial tutorial" so  here it is