Laser Printed Decal

[margolisd]

I've been working on this for a while. My wife's due to give birth any day now and this is what I'm going to give her after the baby is born. This is my first attempt at restoring a dial. HSL was kind enough to send me a spare one to practice on. Which I did, and it ended up being the final one I used. What was also interesting, I attempted Mark's laser printed logo method.Which worked surprisingly well. The edges of the print aren't quite as sharp as the original. But you would have to have a very expert eye to tell the difference. I think with a very high DPI laser printer you could get this more or less perfect.

[AndyHull]

Great work, these smaller movements and dials are tricky to get right. I like the bracelet too. Is it silver?

[margolisd]

I think small movements are great to learn on. Large movements seem so much easier now. 

It's just steel but it's nicely made. Not original.

[HSL]

Must say it looks great! You did a good job.

[Paumanok]

I think small movements are great to learn on. Large movements seem so much easier now. 
It's just steel but it's nicely made. Not original.

I agree. After working on tiny women's movements, full size movements feel like pocket watches.

Is there a before picture? It looks really good from this perspective.

Hopefully this watch will mean more than any off the shelf gift could!

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk

[margolisd]

This was what it looked like from the original eBay listing. The movement was also really rusty and nasty. It was a fun project bringing it back to life!

[Paumanok]

This was what it looked like from the original eBay listing. The movement was also really rusty and nasty. It was a fun project bringing it back to life!

Wow that's an improvement! I'd like to try this one day, I probably need a laser printer first.

The only issue is I tend to like darker dials and you can't deposit white unless you make the whole thing black and use a negative logo. And that disregards color too.

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[margolisd]

No idea how well this would work but... https://www.printerbase.co.uk/sunangel-32sw-white-toner-printer.html

[yankeedog]

Very nice..The IJP doesn't do white. It relies upon the paper for that. So you paint the dial the background color you want ,and print the decal so it has a white  background .

[DFeryance]

One option for white is to use a toner reactive foil. This is what I used with success: https://www.circuitspecialists.com/pcb-trf-white.html I didn't use decal paper for printing but used toner transfer paper. My presumption this would still work with the film-less decal paper.

Getting the toner reactive foil to work is tricky though. It requires both heat and pressure. Too much heat and pressure and entire dial turns white. Too little and it would only partially stick. It also requires some brushing to remove any bits of foil left over. It took a lot of time, practice an patience for it to work for me but it is certainly possible. I wouldn't recommend this on a dial you only have one-shot with, try with a blank you can practice with.