CUSTOM DECAL DIAL TUTORIAL

[watchweasol]

Hi  an attachment just to whet your appetite              cheers

Zenith 2552PC, 2562PC.pdf

[KarlvonKoln]

This is amazing stuff.  I have been dragged into dial restoration by friends who've pleaded with me to save their watch faces, which had been chipped by a former technician or suffered from other damage or age. This is good stuff that I think I may need.  Thanks guys!  I am really glad I joined here.

[KOwatch]

I get the impression that the characteristic look of classic small watch fonts results from a design that works well with pad printing , with tiny serifs to mitigate the effects of surface tension. There's a nice article about it here discussing a font inspired by old watch print fonts:

Decimal watch font

It looks like the printed decal method is not constrained in the same way, so many other fonts are open for experimentation? I've seen a lot of dial fonts that do miss the mark for me, they don't have the same "watchiness" that you'll see from some of the older pad printed fonts.

I tried vector tracing raster images of dial fonts, but I was never quite happy (just on screen) with the results for the crispness. I started looking for similar fonts to replicate the look, or even re-creating the font using font design software like birdfont or fontforge or what have you. I guess much like re-tracing the raster characters in inkscape, but with more font-specific design tools.

 

Other than the one menioned above, are there any classic pad-printing-style watch fonts available you are aware of?

 

Great work on these dials, I am impressed and reinspired to open some of my earlier preliminary efforts in that direction.

The yellow escher lizard diver is a classic!

[KOwatch]

Well, font rabbitholes are deep indeed. Thanks for your tolerance. There's lots of discussion on the subject of watch fonts. A lot of it is concerned with the font of the official brand logos, which may or may not appear on watch dials. These singular brand fonts have also changed a lot over the years, before brand font identity was as big of a deal.  A lot of the discussion is about differences in letter spacing and kerning from one reference dial to the next, also not particularly relevant.

For the small dial text, there's a lot of variation even within a single brand and a single model, over the years. I took a few photo examples of little dial text and cleaned them up to see what matched up on font searches. Oh, there's a lot of options. For these tiny serif ink printing fonts, various "Copperplate" named fonts always show up, as well as a lot of other subtly different yet interesting fonts. There's some good free ones. Since we're looking at decals, we can take the general form without the tiny-serifs, so that opens up a lot more options. Some notable ones from various versions of highway sign fonts.

 Don't let the stodgy old watches limit your font choices though. Let your creativity and your whimsy run free! 

[AndyHull]

6 hours ago, KOwatch said:

I get the impression that the characteristic look of classic small watch fonts results from a design that works well with pad printing , with tiny serifs to mitigate the effects of surface tension. There's a nice article about it here discussing a font inspired by old watch print fonts:

Decimal watch font

Very interesting. I may play with some of the suggested fonts. Thanks.

6 hours ago, KOwatch said:

The yellow escher lizard diver is a classic!

I was quite pleased with how that turned out. Printing it would presents its own problems. I suspect that keeping the lizard detail sharp might be a bit of a challenge. 600 dpi probably wouldn't cut it. Higher resolution inkjet prints might provide a better, sufficiently sharp result. I haven't had time to test this though.

Edited August 16, 2020 by AndyHull

[EnamelDial]

Thank you for this tutorial. 
I draw my designs on Inscape but your designs are masterful.
I post pictures of my drawing project on Inscape

ps. Have you drawn the California dial ?

 

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by EnamelDial

[AndyHull]

Wow that is one cool memento mori design.

I presume that is etched copper.

What process are you using to etch? It is nice and sharp.

What enamels are you planning to use?

What kind of setup are you going to fire it in?

Are you enameling both sides to keep the enamels from cracking?

Does it have dial feet? If so how are they attached

7 hours ago, EnamelDial said:

Have you drawn the California dial ?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Panerai California?

Edited October 4, 2020 by AndyHull

[EnamelDial]

It is hot oxidised stainless steel.
I don't make pins.
I etch it in iron chloride or acid
Californian Dial

 

[AndyHull]

I presume the iron chloride is the same stuff used in copper etching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron(III)_chloride). I didn't realise it would etch stainless so well.

Are you using a UV photo resist?
How do you get such crisp results?

Could you selectively enamel certain details?

 

[EnamelDial]

Iron chloride does not digest steel poorly - I add HNO3
I use an iron and laser print on blue foil (ebay)
This is how I can selectively apply hot enamel - I can do whatever I want in the enamel.
I used your design - etched on brass

 

 

[firebynight]

@EnamelDial amazing work! Thank you for sharing. I'm not interested in doing enamel myself but interested in trying the etching either in copper or brass. Could you share your recommended process for a beginner please?

[Rocket]

On 10/4/2020 at 5:09 PM, EnamelDial said:

Iron chloride does not digest steel poorly - I add HNO3
I use an iron and laser print on blue foil (ebay)
This is how I can selectively apply hot enamel - I can do whatever I want in the enamel.
I used your design - etched on brass

 

 

Wow! BEAUTIFUL WORK! 

[EnamelDial]

13 hours ago, firebynight said:

@EnamelDial amazing work! Thank you for sharing. I'm not interested in doing enamel myself but interested in trying the etching either in copper or brass. Could you share your recommended process for a beginner please?

All the technique here.

 

 

3 hours ago, Rocket said:

Wow! BEAUTIFUL WORK! 

Thank you

 

 

[manodeoro]

On 10/4/2020 at 5:09 PM, EnamelDial said:

Iron chloride does not digest steel poorly - I add HNO3
I use an iron and laser print on blue foil (ebay)
This is how I can selectively apply hot enamel - I can do whatever I want in the enamel.
I used your design - etched on brass

 

 

WOW !!! wonferfull job buddy ... you're definitely more an artist or a craftsman than a hobbyist

Just one question about the "blue foil" you use ... is it Press-n-Peel blue transfer paper used to etch PCBs ?

[Rocket]

I have to say, im going to have a try on enamel dials. Always found the Beautiful. But I think I have to do much simpler work.

Again. Very, very nice work! 

[Tudor]

I would like to ask: can someone with the proper decal skills make me a dial?

I'll send the particulars to whomever want to step up- I have some art (original machine plaque) I can photograph and provide parts or funding...

My machining mentor is retiring, and he had always asked me to build him a watch... I normally repair/restore them so it just never worked out. Now I'd like to send him a decent watch of my design, including the company logo (the old logo) from which he is retiring.

No super-emergency, but I'd like to get it going within the next month or so if possible.

I figure either a Seiko or Eta movement to keep parts availability simple.

PM me (for any monetary discussions) or post here if you like.

Thank you!

[EnamelDial]

5 hours ago, manodeoro said:

WOW !!! wonferfull job buddy ... you're definitely more an artist or a craftsman than a hobbyist

Just one question about the "blue foil" you use ... is it Press-n-Peel blue transfer paper used to etch PCBs ?

No - it's a foil like the projector, only blue.
Or you can print on the cover of a color women's magazine - or tracing paper.
My job is to assemble road safety barriers.
I guilloche and enamel for fun.

 

 

4 hours ago, Rocket said:

I have to say, im going to have a try on enamel dials. Always found the Beautiful. But I think I have to do much simpler work.

Again. Very, very nice work! 

Bravo - enamelling is very easy to learn. Good luck

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Tudor said:

I would like to ask: can someone with the proper decal skills make me a dial?

 

PM me (for any monetary discussions) or post here if you like.

Thank you!

Submit a photo (black and white) and the diameter of the dial.

[Tudor]

I’ll see if I can get stuff together for that, thank you. 

[manodeoro]

10 hours ago, EnamelDial said:

No - it's a foil like the projector, only blue.

Would you post a link to that product please ?

[EnamelDial]

5 hours ago, manodeoro said:

Would you post a link to that product please ?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Press-n-Peel-Blue-Transfer-Film-PCBs/dp/B078BQNSGF

[AndyHull]

This arrived in one of my many feeds. It describes how to use Inkscake for tessellations (repeated tilling of the 2D plane with less than obvious shapes). 

https://www.instructables.com/Quickly-Sketch-Escher-type-Repeats-Using-Inkscape/

There is scope for combining this with rotations to produce some very interesting circular designs.

I'll need to look in to it in more depth when I get a spare moment, but I thought I'd share it here in the hope that it might provide some inspiration.

On a related note, there is also this work by Michelle Chandra which uses a plotter with various media to produce some very attractive work. I'm not sure how you would scale that down to watch dial size, but I'm sure it could be done.

https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2021/featured-artist-michelle-chandra/

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

This thread has been dormant for a while, but I thought it worth adding this to it.

When we looked at the custom decal dial idea originally, I realised that cutting material accurately was part of the problem when laying out a design. Its can be a pretty tricky task cutting exactly a 30mm dial design,  with a hole exactly 2mm for example, or cutting rounded squares or ellipses or whatever, since you are dealing with small dimensions, so any inaccuracies tend to be pretty obvious.

One idea I had was to use a vinyl cutter, but since I don't have access to one, and since they are pretty expensive for your average tinkerer, I didn't pursue the idea.

Recently however I spotted a "spares or repair" item on ebay (where else?) that I thought might be up to the task.

This was a "Silhouette Portrait 2" portable cutting machine. Basically a crafting or hobby level vinyl cutter. I placed a low ball bid, not really expecting to get it, and not really expecting it to be complete or working, even if I did place the winning bid. There were no other bidders, so I am now the owner of a small, inexpensive (much, much cheaper than a new one) and relatively accurate cutting machine. 

Note: The RRP for this machine is somewhere around £353.66 GBP, but they actually retail around the £260.00 GBP mark. I paid less than a tenth of that for it as a spares or repair item.

Don't expect to cut much with these. They have a cutting force of around 210g and can cut to a max depth of 2mm or so. The manufacturer states that it can "cut over 100 types of media", which is a slightly woolly claim. It should be able however to  cut paper, vinyl, cardstock, fabric and leather, and pretty much anything else that is similar. Not metal of course.

It arrived, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was it complete, but it also had a more robust after market cutter attachment, and three sets of different sized blades.

Furthermore, after a little bit of messing around, I have it working, with Inkscape on Linux, rather than the manufacturer's proprietary cloud based software on Windows. 

It operated a little like a plotter, using an open source plugin for Inkscape. The full spec of the Silhouette Portrait 2 device is -> here <-
 

There are lots of other similar devices on the market.

The workflow is simple. Design whatever you want in Inkscape, export it to the plugin. Check that it looks like it will cut and send it to the cutter.

The plugin even lets you cut things like cardstock without using the proprietary sticky cutting mats that are usually required. Here are a few pictures of my initial experiments, cutting random bits of scrap cardstock into roughly watch dial sized circles. Obviously if I decide to pursue this further, I will need to figure out how to pre-print the cutting stock and keep it registered in the cutter, so the cutout aligns with the design.

It might also prove useful for cutting templates to stick to thicker materials like brass sheet or acrylic.

EDIT: It seems that it can "etch" softer metals like brass and aluminium,with the steel cutting tip, so I will need to explore that too.

EDIT2: How accurate is this, and what is the resolution of the cut? The short answer is that the cutter specs from the manufacturer's web site don't tell us this, however we can figure it out from the Inkscape plugin code.

The cutter is treated as a plotter (which it is, for all intents and purposes, you can fit a pen attachment to it and draw with it too).

Inkscape uses 96dpi by default when dealing with images (SVG files). The plotter/cutter deals in mm. If we assume we cannot cut more accurately than 96dpi then this means that the resolution of the plotted cuts is roughly defined in the Inkscape extension thus. 
This assumption may be incorrect, the plotter may be able to better than this, and the code may work in sub pixels, I haven't dug into this possibility.
Here is the python code that seems to define our basic plotting unit (from sendto_silhouette.py )

Quote

def px2mm(px):
    """
    Convert inkscape pixels to mm.
    The default inkscape unit, called 'px' is 96dpi
    """
    return px*25.4/96

This gives a resolution of the cut at around 0.26mm per step (assuming a step is  1/96th of an inch).
Other factors of course are also important, since the material may deform when cut of example, but this does give us a rough ballpark of the accuracy of cutting. In practice that 2mm hole in the test cut looks pretty circular, so all in all the cuts look good.

EDIT3: It seems, on further digging through the python code, that the native resolution of the plotter is actually 0.05mm, which is actually fairly impressive, however this does not take in to account, the properties of whatever is being cut, the sharpness of the blade and so forth. Realistically the resolution will be lower than this for a cut, but possibly not for an etch or a pen plot, if you can find a nice sharp blade, or a 0.05mm drafting pen.
 

Quote

silhouette/Graphtec.py:# Native resolution of the plotter is 0.05mm -- All movements are integer multiples of this.

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

The cutting mats arrived on the slow boat from China for the Silhouette Portrait cutting machine, so I thought a little leather cutting might be an interesting experiment.

Now I should point out that the software that comes with the machine would probably not be able to cut 2mm thick sofa leather scraps, but I 'aint using the software that comes with the machine.

Inkscape plus the Linux Silhouette driver does allow you to cut custom shapes, control the cutting speed, and do multiple passes, so 2mm thick leather does indeed cut.

Not bad for something that is targetted at hobbyists cutting card stock.

Admittedly I took around 12 passes, with the machine on its slowest setting, which may not be the optimal settings but it works and furthermore it works very well.

The two test strips cut from some scrap are dimensionally perfect (18.0mm x 120.0mm with 5mm corner radii). The kerf is effectively zero, since the blades are extremely sharp. I would guess it is around 0.05mm, but that would be material dependent. Some materials will cut with far less fray than others.

Now you could presumably do the same thing with a laser cutter, but I don't have one (yet), and I suspect the smell of burning leather would be somewhat terrible.

Now I need to see if I can cut accurate holes. If so, and if I can sew leather strips together with my ancient, but agricultural Singer sewing machine, or at a pinch, by hand, I can make custom leather watch straps. I may have a go at some of those 1970s Racing straps with lots of holes in, or maybe some vintage looking straps for fixed lug watches.

Time for more experiments I feel. I'll keep you all posted with my results when I have some time to play with designs and mess around some more, even if they prove to be a disaster.

Edited May 13, 2023 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

The "for leather" sewing machine needles arrived today, so I dug out one of the machines and tried a test pieces, or to be more precise, two off 18mm wide x 2mm x random length leather test pieces sewn together with contrasting thin gauge polyester thread.

The topmost, and more squint row of stitching was stitched by hand cranking the machine very slowly, just to see if the needle was going to explode.

For the bottom row, I plucked up the courage to use the motor, and nothing broke, so to answer my own question, yes, you can cut and sew fairly precise leather pieces at home.

If and when I take this any further, I'll need to set up a work piece feed guide jig, to keep the distance between the edge of the workpiece and the stitching to a more elegant and more consistent 3mm or 1/8th inch, and probably knock the stitch length down from 4mm to say 2.5mm as sewing by hand-feeding at the standard 1/4 inch edge gap that the machine is usually used at, looks a little rough and ready, and a standard 1.5mm stitch is probably a little short. 

I guess I should take some measurements of stitch length, edge gap etc. from some of the better made watch bands I have, and use those as a guide. I also probably need to use thicker thread (to make the results more robust) in a matching, or more interesting colour, rather than white.

I also probably need to move this topic into its own thread, as it currently has wandered quite a bit from the custom watch dials topic.

One advantage of white thread is that you can colour it fairly easily with alcohol based inks. So I brought out the coloured felt tip pens to see what would work best. Bear in mind also that you can load up the top spool of the sewing machine with one colour of thread and the bottom with another, and so long as the tension is correct on the sewing machine, you will end up with one colour on the top of the stitches and another on the other side. Dashed clever these sewing machines.  
 

Edited May 19, 2023 by AndyHull