A little tool that I had 3D printed. I can already see some improvements to the design.
Here's the package that I received. The base unit plus 3 spacer pieces to get the correct dial height.
You can see the two little holes for positioning the dial feet. In the next version these will be deeper as at the moment it is quite difficult to get the feet to remain vertical.
But checking the alignment with a dial with stock ETA feet shows they are in the correct location.
You can see the new feet sitting in the post holes here and one of the spacers sitting on the central post. The central post needs to be almost double the height in the next version so that the dial can be centered using it.
The pop the blank dial with no feet on top, make sure it is centred over the post hole and aligned with the triangle at 12.
The last step would be to add a drop of two part epoxy to the top of the legs and allow it to set for 24 hours or so. It's not going to be as strong as soldering but should be better than using dial dots or gluing the dial to the spacer ring.
Here's the package that I received. The base unit plus 3 spacer pieces to get the correct dial height.
You can see the two little holes for positioning the dial feet. In the next version these will be deeper as at the moment it is quite difficult to get the feet to remain vertical.
But checking the alignment with a dial with stock ETA feet shows they are in the correct location.
You can see the new feet sitting in the post holes here and one of the spacers sitting on the central post. The central post needs to be almost double the height in the next version so that the dial can be centered using it.
The pop the blank dial with no feet on top, make sure it is centred over the post hole and aligned with the triangle at 12.
The last step would be to add a drop of two part epoxy to the top of the legs and allow it to set for 24 hours or so. It's not going to be as strong as soldering but should be better than using dial dots or gluing the dial to the spacer ring.