Aging raffles datejust dials

[qjai89]

I've intentionally burned the shit out of a genuine gold sunburst datejust dial. With enough heat, the dial printings wiped off like powder.
I'd very cognizant of the temperature if you were going to bake it.
I'd definitely start with the smoke technique mentioned above. If it fails, alcohol should be able to clean it. But that assumes the dial printing is not sensitive to alcohol.
Lastly, the resin or tar from the tobacco might be sticky. I'd mask off the bottom of the dial, and obviously, don't attempt to do this with the movement attached.

I've received all my parts from raffles but had an issue with the dial as the markers were falling off (raffles graciously agreed to send me a new one free of charge so just waiting for that to arrive).

I tried to play around with the defected dial by gluing the indicies back on but left some scratches on the dial so I tried to use some metal polish to see if I could get the scratch off. Similar to you the area I worked on the printings wiped off like powder. Since that only happened between 4 and 7, I decided for shits and giggles to just clean off all the minute tracks all together as seen on the picture.



Needless to say, the print seems quite fragile indeed and I won't be using this dial for my final build but looks kinda good for now in a funny way haha.

 

[dpd3672]

I've received all my parts from raffles but had an issue with the dial as the markers were falling off (raffles graciously agreed to send me a new one free of charge so just waiting for that to arrive).

I tried to play around with the defected dial by gluing the indicies back on but left some scratches on the dial so I tried to use some metal polish to see if I could get the scratch off. Similar to you the area I worked on the printings wiped off like powder. Since that only happened between 4 and 7, I decided for shits and giggles to just clean off all the minute tracks all together as seen on the picture.



Needless to say, the print seems quite fragile indeed and I won't be using this dial for my final build but looks kinda good for now in a funny way haha.

Looks like the second "P" in "Perpetual" didn't survive the process intact, either, but it's actually a nice looking watch like that. Sort of a "President" vibe.

 

[qjai89]

Looks like the second "P" in "Perpetual" didn't survive the process intact, either, but it's actually a nice looking watch like that. Sort of a "President" vibe.

Yea I was debating if I should just wipe out all the text or not just for fun

 

[Karbon74]

not a silver dial but things can be done on a sunburst

 

[Dizzy]

I believe the 1520-1575 overlay has the numbers in the reverse order. 3135 and 1570 don't turn in the same direction, to my knowledge.

Yes that is correct. The 1570 and the 3035/3135 turn in different directions. 1570 numbers go clockwise and 3135 they go counter clockwise.

 

[qjai89]

Got the new dial from raffles. He sent me the "higher quality" dial which has better more accurate text. Didn't end up aging the dial. Will probably play with aging the old broken one over the next little bit, but here's the final product!