What would the black face look like with the original hands?
As I now need reading glasses some watches I own have become less worn as I find the dials hard to read without my glasses.
This is why I mostly wear either my Explorer or W10 these days ...
I have a nice Zenith which was an engagement gift from my wife that I will never sell ... but I don't wear it much as it's fine hands and white dial make it no so easy to read at a glance.
Rather than just allow it to sit in the watch box I was considering having it redialed or just some new hands ...
What are peoples thoughts on this? I don't care about the residual value.
What would the black face look like with the original hands?
I'd say theres not much risk here if you preserve and store the original dial and hands,
Is the new dial quite easy to source?
Is it possible to get a nice flat finish on the surface of the dial after you've removed the indices?
White date ring with a black dial always looks a bit cheap to me.
I'd find some wider hands that fit and get them painted black, it's a good look:
I think black dial looks very nice. I think that it is worth to make a new dial.
New hands seem the obvious choice, easy to do and the least likely to need changed back if you resell?
Well I showed my mock ups to my wife who wasn't keen .... she said I'd spoil it and just to go out an buy a new watch if that one was hard to read ... can't argue with that really ...
The other possibility is to re-paint the existing hands black, to create contrast, and leave the dial the same. I can assure you that legibility will increase dramatically.
The lume will need stripping to paint the hands, and then re-applying. I can recommend James to do this work, he is excellent.
Dave
I too think you need to keep the dial original
And find black / dark hands to replace the hands on there currently
Do not ruin the original dial, it will not be the same watch as given to you by your wife if you do. (IMO)