My First Test Dial Printing...i'm Over The Moon!

[Rafal]

nice work, company name a little bit off center:) but still looks great.  

I see thats 12s prepared to cased as wrist watch, would you mind to share how you approached stem installation to wrist case? Originally inner circle with some graving wasnt painted, I wonder how would it look if you did the same. I collect only South Bend watches and thats interesting process for me in terms of restoring old dials to its original condition, as some of dial refinishes do the job but dont pay much attention to factory dials and use different fonts etc. 

[DJW]

To answer a few questions...

I use "open office" to do the Dial designs. It's a lot like Microsoft Office Draw program.

It's was quite a long time ago that I did this dial so I've refined a lot since then. I use to have someone develope my printing plates for me, but now make my own.

The stem is original. I reduce the diameter of the treads by turning it on my lathe, then re thread the stem to fit the new crown. I do sometimes have to make new stems if I find a movement that doesn't have one. 

Here are 2 dials I printed last evening. I'm sure you can see how much more refined they look compared to the original dial in this post.. (The white dial has a little glare from the lights...so the printing doesn't actually fade from dark to light as it appears.)

[DJW]

Here's a screen grab of what the program looks like that I use to design my dials. After the design work is done, I export it as a PDF and then reverse print onto a clear positive film. I cut out the design to match the size of the plate to be printed and place the film printed side down so that the printed side actually touches the plate. This is so no UV light can pass under the film, which is what would happen if I printed the dial not reversed and placed it on the plate....it's a little confusing but if you saw just how it is done it would make sense...

[dadistic]

So you use pre-coated plates, expose the plate with the printed film, and then etch? I'm guessing that it took a bit of experimentation to get the exposure and etching times correct for the best detail. I always look at the sub-dials and small text for flaws, and yours looks great!

[Rafal]

They look great, cant see much difference from those restoration companies dials. Nice progress with your printing. Thanks for answering question about stem, South Bend 12s are good for casing as wrist watches as they have swiss type of stem, other sizes are more difficult.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Rafal