Reply With QuoteVery nice ! What is used for the white surface? Is it painted?
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I like to practise traditional watchmaking skills whenever I get the chance, lest I should forget them.
Replacing a damaged enamel dial with a new genuine one is extremely costly and almost impossible, since only a couple of people now make high quality enamel dials and will only do so for the Companies they work for.
Patek Phillipe and Ulysse Nardin will only make them for their own watches.
There are some independents around but the finish falls well short of originals.
Having the correct tools means I can turn a dial in brass, then get my Swiss dial restorer to print the face and text. Copying pretty accurately the original dial and at a reasonable price.
Here is the original dial, damaged beyond repair:
I first find a suitable piece of brass. Pocket watch enamel dials are usually around 1mm thick. I then cut the brass slightly larger than the diameter of the original dial:
It is then held with heated shellac (ground beetle shells) in a wax brass chuck on the lathe, using a hand held graver to make a perfect disc:
The holes for the hour and minute hands and small seconds hand are then marked out using the original dial as a template and the dial is rested on the movement to ensure that the holes are accurate:
The dial is then moved eccentrically on the brass chuck to turn the recess for the small seconds dial.
After this the dial is soft cemented to the movement. I use Rodico to hold it in place. I then mark the holes for the dial locating pins:
The pins are then hard soldered with silver solder and cut to length:
All traces of solder and soldering flux are removed by boiling the dial in a reducing bath:
The dial face is then rubbed over with 1200 wet and dry paper to give it a flat surface on which the dial restorer can print:
It is then sent for printing and here is the finished result:
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did making the dial.
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Very nice ! What is used for the white surface? Is it painted?
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Wow, that is a very special piece of work.
Thank you for sharing that here and I am glad there are people like you and your dial restorer who can still do this.
That looks great Brendan.
That was a joy to watch. Thank you.
Matt
Really excellent work. I love these types of threads where talent is combined with ingenuity and creativity.
Reply nice work
Brilliant stuff, Mr H. Thanks for taking the time to share it.
Thank you for all your replies.Originally Posted by Mr G Imp
*The finish is ultra high gloss white enamel paint. Virtually indistinguishable from enamel.
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Marvellous work/skills, ta for sharing.
F.T.F.A.
Brilliant work, love the idea of turning a piece of brass into a lovely looking dial.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Thanks OOK, I remember watching 30mm diameter brass rod being sliced and turned into watch movements some years ago.
A truly astonishing transformation !
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Very enjoyable read there, thanks.
How does the printer replicate the dial printing so accurately?!
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
My word you have a lot of skill and patience.
An individual printing plate is made so that the font and layout can be accurately reproduced. For most common watches a plate already exists. Such as for these 806 dials also recently restored :
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Absolutely amazing work!!
Great to see stuff like this. Superb work - the watch gets to live and be enjoyed again.
It does bring it back to life. And the advantage is the restoration price. An enamel dial would have cost around £1000.00 when Donzé Cadrans Le Locle Switzerland used to make them. This restoration including making the printing plate is about a third of the price.
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As always, fascinating to have an insight in to the work you do Brendan - thanks for sharing!
Absolutely brilliant!
Superb stuff.
Many thanks for sharing your skills on the forum Brendan very appreciated.
Thanks to all for your appreciation. I guess it keeps me outa the pub !
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Dial now fitted and with a period bevelled crystal to finish.
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Stunning work, given it a new lease of life.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
I do hope that the owner will be pleased. It has great sentimental attachment to him.
Apparently he is in some deep and remote part of the world right now.
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Great stuff Brendan.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Cor, looks like I imagine it would have looked new.
Well done.
I should think he'll be very pleased, great work and thanks for posting.
And now he’s back from riding a motorbike across the Mongolian steppe and very much looking forward to getting the watch back!
Thank you Brendan, the pictures look great.
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An interesting and informative post , thank you very much for posting .
My pleasure Berin, (and Tasmo61)
Would be great if you could post some photos of your journey. I'm sure most of us would love to do something like that !
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I'll post a few pics up in the bikes thread. In the meantime, I now have the watch back and I'm overjoyed with the result. The dial that was a catastrophic loss has been replaced by something that looks as though it was always in the watch. The high gloss white face and black numerals look perfect, and I'm jut running the watch now to check time keeping.
Brendan, thanks again.
Here's a couple of iPhone pics:
Now we're on a roll, I've dug out an old gold Hunter by William Bent.
I don't know much about this, came to me from my dad - it runs but the movement is a bit graunchy and the case back to the movement has some scuffs from unsympathetic opening - maybe you could take a look, Brendan?
Sure. Send it to me after Monday week please. It's an English three quarter plate doctor's watch or stop watch. The slider on the case stops or starts the watch. About 1890 ishI'll post a few pics up in the bikes thread. In the meantime, I now have the watch back and I'm overjoyed with the result. The dial that was a catastrophic loss has been replaced by something that looks as though it was always in the watch. The high gloss white face and black numerals look perfect, and I'm jut running the watch now to check time keeping.
Brendan, thanks again.
Here's a couple of iPhone pics:
Now we're on a roll, I've dug out an old gold Hunter by William Bent.
I don't know much about this, came to me from my dad - it runs but the movement is a bit graunchy and the case back to the movement has some scuffs from unsympathetic opening - maybe you could take a look, Brendan?
Where's the Bike Thread ??
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