No dial feet?

[GPrideaux]

I've been given a small Accurist quartz ladies watch to have a look at. It was reported as not working, and hand been in a drawer for a number of years. I noticed before opening it that the hands were misaligned: the minute hand was at about 20 to the hour, but the hour hand was at about quarter past nine. When I opened it, I found the dial turned freely. Immediately thinking broken dial feet, I removed the dead battery and the hands and the dial came straight off. I half expected to find the dial feet stuck in the movement, but instead I found no evidence of dial feet at all ... as in it appears it never had dial feet. Instead the dial appears to have been secured with dots of adhesive that are no longer sticky enough to do their job. There are a couple of coppery spots on the back of the dial, but they don't correspond with holes on the movement that could support dial feet.

So, first, is this a thing, where some watches were sold with adhesive instead of dial feet?

If so, what adhesive would be appropriate to use to replace what is there that has lost its tack?

If not, I'll have to assume that the movement was replaced at some time with one that didn't match the feet on the dial, and the person who did the repair removed the dial feet and replaced them with adhesive dots.

I can see what appear to be holes for feet on the movement. Should I try to make new dial feet on those positions on the dial? Would that be best practice here?

[AndyGSi]

I've some across a lot of brand watches like these that just use dial dots to secure.

[HectorLooi]

Not all dials can be soldered, especially those made of aluminium.

The back of the dial is a real mess. I think someone tried soldering before.

I think dial dots, or double sided tape would work fine in this case as there is plenty of blank space on the movement. It would have been a problem had there been a day disk and date wheel.

[Neverenoughwatches]

Any way to fix dials to movements you can think of and more has been tried Glen. The dial is maybe not original, to the watch. The problem with dial dots, if the adhesive gets for whatever reason, they ease up on holding the dial in place. Attaching feet is a nice permanent solution, if you want to go to the trouble of it. Its a tricky process with risks however you do it.

I'm not sure I've seen dials without feet before, but probably.  Often they are there and only push on to the movement with dial feet screws.