CUSTOM DECAL DIAL TUTORIAL

[FatherCLock]

amazing job and excellent dial design 

[morningtundra]

How do you spray? Straight from the can or some kind of air brush?


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[manodeoro]

On 7/16/2019 at 1:12 PM, morningtundra said:

How do you spray? Straight from the can or some kind of air brush?


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Hi @mornigtundra ... and sorry for answering so lately

I spray directly from the can

[markr]

Has any one tried to 3D print a dial?

[toptime810]

How about this custom dial that's not a decal but made by hand and lacquered and lumed by me

 

[manodeoro]

On 10/28/2019 at 4:35 AM, toptime810 said:

How about this custom dial that's not a decal but made by hand and lacquered and lumed by me

 

Really interesting ... which method did you use for the design ?

[Redwood]

Is there a free program out there that will create a dial and how do you do it. I can just about do a circle and size it


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[aac58]

There's a design program called Inkscape. It's free and there are tutorials for designing watch/clock dials on youtube like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si6IcIvv55g

 

[Redwood]

There's a design program called Inkscape. It's free and there are tutorials for designing watch/clock dials on youtube like this one: 

 

I have Inkscape but never found the time to use it. I used paint dot net years ago but never for dials


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[vinn3]

  very good show!   I'll try it.  vin

[AndyHull]

On 12/9/2019 at 9:13 AM, aac58 said:

There's a design program called Inkscape. It's free and there are tutorials for designing watch/clock dials on youtube like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si6IcIvv55g

 

Well worth watching. Thanks. I finally got round to watching the whole thing.

Great for improving your Inkscape Fu.. to. I've learned a new  tricks.

This is a still image from the tutorial. As you can see, it has some nicely distributed dial features, all of which are obviously customizable, and only limited by your imagination. 

For those who are unfamiliar with Inkscape, it allows you to create and edit vector images, which are essentially infinitely scalable without loss of definition. More conventional images use fixed size pixels, which introduce artifacts to the image when scaled. What this means in reality is that a vector based design tends to look smoother than a raster based one (subject of course to the limitations of whatever you are printing it with).

Best of all perhaps is that Inkscape is free and open source, so you can simply download and use it.

 You can download it from here ->  https://inkscape.org/ <-There are versions for Linux, Windows and OSX (and of course, the source code if you want to contribute to development).

[Vacherin]

Great thread thanks,. I have read most of the dial making threads. This one looks promising fun and realistically achievable. 

As an alternative has anyone here engraved a dial?

I saw a pad printing setup in a factory clearance, and I couldn't help but think I could make something similar with a Drill Press. Repeatability of alignment would be key. I am also wondering if I could cast bathroom silicon using eggshells as a mould shape to make pads, as some of the newer pads are silicon, although some pads are only £50, ink and rollers are not cheap, nor is the "typeset" dial image, although this setup I saw had a plastic one which I would imagine was cheaper to make.

[jdm]

Building one own is certainly a possibility but to get results more quickly a brand new machine is not crazy expensive.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32532654243.html

[manodeoro]

Building one own is certainly a possibility but to get results more quickly a brand new machine is not crazy expensive.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32532654243.html

Plus you can order a 2x2 inches ssteel cliché for cheap there

https://a.aliexpress.com/LsG6SYowf

Or have one laser etched locally

 

 

 

[Vacherin]

15 hours ago, manodeoro said:

Plus you can order a 2x2 inches ssteel cliché for cheap there

https://a.aliexpress.com/LsG6SYowf

Or have one laser etched locally

---

Wow.

Those plates look fantastic! All I would need is a plate ordered from them, a tampon for the ink transfer, ink, roller and a drill press, I could at least start playing from there! I need to design a face now! Thanks so much. 

 

 

[AndyHull]

Ive just spent an amusing couple of hours replaying that Inkscape youtube video, and playing with the various options. I've just about got the hang of distributing cloned elements around the center of the object to create various effects.

I must admit it was great fun, and a nice way to while away a little time while a monstrous thunderstorm blew through.

Here is the latest bizarre creation. Maybe I'll have a crack at a Max Bill clone next, or maybe a dial with dials as numerals.

[AndyHull]

Bauhaus-esque sterile dial version 0.1 The dial objects are currently scaled to a 26mm outside diameter dial (which theoretically would fit a Seagull 2130 and a bunch of others).

You are obviously free to do what you like with them.
Scale them. Shade or colour them. Add your own text and/or logo. Let your imagination run wild.

The top image is a jpg, so probably the worst in terms of scale-ability and resolution. 
The middle is a .png

The third is the .svg from which the others are derived. This last one is a vector format, so in theory, infinitely scalable.

You should also be able to edit the .svc in Inkscape, to un-group and modify the objects, add text objects and so forth, then convert to whatever format is suitable for further processing and printing.

This document is set with the dial center, centered on an A6 page size (to make finding the center of rotation easier when distributing objects around the dial), so you may need to cut and paste from there to a more suitable page size if printing multiple copies, or working with US paper sizes.

Enjoy.  

Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA

Edited January 19, 2020 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

Example text. Have a browse online for Open Source fonts, if you want to be even more creative.

[Chopin]

Thank you @manodeoro for this topic. You've inspired some ideas/thoughts.

I've always thought if it's possible to be able to restore (to their original form) all sorts of beat up watches that no one cares for that you can find around in markets or online and I would LOVE to be able to recondition as much as possible on a watch.

Have you managed to lume the tutorial dial ? Also, have you tried doing this on a dial with metallic markers on it ? I'd imagine that it would be much easier to remove the markers first and apply them at the end ? Also, how did you cut the holes in the center and date window ?

[AndyHull]

A few more variations on the theme.

Edited January 20, 2020 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

... and a few attempts to emulate CRT phosphor colours with a Röntgen x-ray/Germanic vibe.

Want your newly invented watch brand to sound German? If in doubt, add an umlaut.

[AndyHull]

A "blacklight" version.

Not sure what you would do for hands for this. Also I think this and the CRT themed ones would have to be printed with inkjet printer fluorescent inks (yes those are a "thing") for the full glowing/UV effect.

I think I'll move on to something a bit more "classical" next.

Perhaps continuing the Bauhaus theme, or maybe something a bit more 19th Century Pocket Watch.

Edited January 20, 2020 by AndyHull

[AndyHull]

18 hours ago, AndyHull said:

Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA

Anyone is free to play with any of these versions of course. 

The font used is called "Smush" -> https://www.studiotypo.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=smush

I used the non commercial use, restricted character set version. If you want to use it commercially, you will need to obtain a license. Details on the link above.

There are lots of other free and open source fonts you might try (not "comic sans".. please, I implore you.. just don't ).

Edited January 20, 2020 by AndyHull

[manodeoro]

18 hours ago, Chopin said:

Thank you @manodeoro for this topic. You've inspired some ideas/thoughts.

I've always thought if it's possible to be able to restore (to their original form) all sorts of beat up watches that no one cares for that you can find around in markets or online and I would LOVE to be able to recondition as much as possible on a watch.

Have you managed to lume the tutorial dial ? Also, have you tried doing this on a dial with metallic markers on it ? I'd imagine that it would be much easier to remove the markers first and apply them at the end ? Also, how did you cut the holes in the center and date window ?

Hi @Chopin and thanks

I've never lumed that dial as it was only a test ... since then I've bought a Heuer 980.016 case but I still have to refurbish it (it's a really beaten one) and source a smaller blank dial with the accurate date window in the right place ...

About dials with metallic markers ... I've done some a few years ago and YES it's easier to remove the markers before applying the decal.

And about the holes on the center and date window I cut them with an xActo after the decal is perfectly dried and before applying the final varnisg finish.

To be 100% honest I confront the limitations of that decal method more and more every day and I'm really thinking about switching to pad-print method in a near future 

[AndyHull]

Another trick, not shown in the above Youtube tutorial.

Take your finalized design, paste it in to a new Inkscape document, the actual size of the media you will print on.

Scale it (if necessary) to the actual size required for your blank dial. In other words if your dial is meant to be 26.26mm x 26.26mm and your .SVG vector artwork is say 52mm x 52mm. The option for this is in the main toolbar.

Use the padlock to ensure that the H and V sized scale at the same time.

Next, cone the object using the required number of rows and columns, but add a margin to the X and Y (in this case 5%) to ensure you can cut out the dials from the sheet. In this case I can fit 10 x 7 dials on an A4 page.

Finally use Select All from the Edit menu, then Align and Distribute from the Object menu, and center all of your selections both vertically and horizontally on the page.

You should end up with a professional looking artwork a little like this.

NOTE: The example image here is a .JPG file, so it is lower resolution and has more scaling artifacts than you would get if you were to keep working with the .SVG files up to the final printing stage. If you are not looking st it on your phone, then keep clicking the image till you see it at its full resolution. It isn't too bad for a jpeg. 

NOTE 2: I changed the font to another open license, geometric, san-serif one called Glacial Indifference.
               https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/glacial-indifference

The license is slightly less restrictive, but I prefer the look of Smush, as it is a little more Bauhaus.

Edited January 20, 2020 by AndyHull