Decal printed dial

[369mafia]

Tropical 1016 - gen spec 1016 case

Yes please. Where do I place my order. ????


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[Matt5513]

Yes please. Where do I place my order. ????


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WOW!!!!!

 

[Amaiel]

Tropical 1016 - gen spec 1016 case

[h=1]Aubergine. Stunning color[/h]

 

[muggs]

A question to those gold plating their dials - are you plating gold straight onto brass or are you nickel plating first?

I’ve been looking things up and apparently the zinc from the brass can dissolve into the gold if it’s not plated more than 5 microns


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[bigtiddygothgf]

where are you guys sourcing dial blanks? or are you sanding down already printed dials to the bare brass?

 

[itgoes211]

where are you guys sourcing dial blanks? or are you sanding down already printed dials to the bare brass?

1). Otto Frei offrei.com has the best deals I’ve been able to find on blanks. They even beat China blanks. But primarily for ETA feet and date windows. They never have the white, no-date blanks, but you can get the same with numbers, clean, and repaint them. The blank white 2824 date ones are good.

2). Shopgoodwill.com. They have everything from bags of watches to a gen - yes, real gen - pepsi 1675. It sold for $29k I believe. I’ve found a few other Rolex that turned out to be Vegas fakies. Hard to get a good now on some cool vintages (Seiko s, Omega’s, zodiacs, war eras, etc) since most collectors know about the site now. But I picked up a few gen Pogues and zodiacs and others for steals! ... Anyway, buy a bag for $10 and you’ll get all sorts/sizes of dials to source/clean and repaint. Mostly quartz and you’ll have to put new feet.

If anyone else knows other places, please chime in. It’s hard to believe we can get bulk orders of blanks from China. Please share if anyone knows.

 

[bigtiddygothgf]

1). Otto Frei offrei.com has the best deals I’ve been able to find on blanks. They even beat China blanks. But primarily for ETA feet and date windows. They never have the white, no-date blanks, but you can get the same with numbers, clean, and repaint them. The blank white 2824 date ones are good.

2). Shopgoodwill.com. They have everything from bags of watches to a gen - yes, real gen - pepsi 1675. It sold for $29k I believe. I’ve found a few other Rolex that turned out to be Vegas fakies. Hard to get a good now on some cool vintages (Seiko s, Omega’s, zodiacs, war eras, etc) since most collectors know about the site now. But I picked up a few gen Pogues and zodiacs and others for steals! ... Anyway, buy a bag for $10 and you’ll get all sorts/sizes of dials to source/clean and repaint. Mostly quartz and you’ll have to put new feet.

If anyone else knows other places, please chime in. It’s hard to believe we can get bulk orders of blanks from China. Please share if anyone knows.

unfortunately otto frei dials are 28.5mm whereas i need 29mm blanks. may have to resort to buying larger dials and just lathing them down. I have seen bulk orders of bare brass dial blanks from china but minimum orders where in the hundreds of pieces.

 

[itgoes211]

Ah, bummer about the sizes. If I see any 29s I’ll let you know.

Hey, maybe we could enough guys together from this post to pitch in and buy a 100+ batch. I would be in for 20-30 or more if the price is right. Let me know the links if you run across any more.

We’d have to figure out the logistics based on participants locations, aggregating funds, dial/order sizes, etc. but I bet we could figure it out, especially if participants are in similar countries. I’m conus. You?

To EVERYONE: Is anyone else interested in getting in on a batch order of blank dials?

 

[bigtiddygothgf]

I'm also CONUS, would be willing to buy about the same amount depending on the price.

found two links on alibaba. minimum for one is 500 and other 200 however im sure the suppliers would be willing to work something out for a smaller, but still substantial enough quantity.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...spm=a2700.7724857.normalList.7.615e70d9c2RbeG

https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...pm=a2700.7724857.normalList.21.615e70d9c2RbeG

 

[muggs]

I’d be interested, but I’m in the UK.

I tried to get some custom bezel inserts made about a year or so ago. The factories are pretty strict about minimum orders, particularly for cheap items, often a single run may be their minimum order size.

It was going to cost me about £2k for a run of 500 bezel inserts when I only wanted one!


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[manodeoro]

where are you guys sourcing dial blanks? or are you sanding down already printed dials to the bare brass?

Raffles Dials has 29.2mm dials for both 2824-2 and 2813 movements ... $10 each so not cheap but not too much expensive
http://rafflestime.com/plain-milsub-watch-dial-for-eta-2836-2824-movement-white-lume/
http://rafflestime.com/plain-milsub-watch-dial-for-dg-2813-movement-w-o-date-white-lume/
I remove the printings and black laquer with acetone then sand the dials to the bare brass and polished it before plating

A question to those gold plating their dials - are you plating gold straight onto brass or are you nickel plating first?

I’ve been looking things up and apparently the zinc from the brass can dissolve into the gold if it’s not plated more than 5 microns

I use those dials above and plate then traight on brass ... plate/polish/plate/polish
I've never had any problems with zinc dissolving into the gold plating

 

[steve3sc]

I’m looking for someone to create/print some decals for a project I’m working on. If you have experience and can help me out, pm me for details!

 

[Holla09]

Does anyone on the forum know of someone that sells printed sheets of dials? I've been doing these decals for a few years now on my 40 dollar ink jet and the smaller text never comes out as crisply as what I'm seeing others post on here. I downloaded the gimp software to mess with resolution of the files someone sent over but still no luck.

 

[acer1113]

I’m looking for someone to create/print some decals for a project I’m working on. If you have experience and can help me out, pm me for details!

Avoid doing business with this motherfucker.

He's a thief and a backdoor seller, he just scammed me for 400$
Don't make paypal transactions to [email protected] at name of Michael Rice.

 

[p0pperini]

Does anyone on the forum know of someone that sells printed sheets of dials? I've been doing these decals for a few years now on my 40 dollar ink jet and the smaller text never comes out as crisply as what I'm seeing others post on here. I downloaded the gimp software to mess with resolution of the files someone sent over but still no luck.

If your printer won’t print at high enough dpi, messing with the source image resolution won’t make any difference. Cheap inkjet printers will generally print at 300dpi, perhaps 600. For good dial prints you need a printer that will output at 1200dpi.

I recently took a chance on a cheap Samsung Xpress M2026 laser printer from Amazon. It was only £43, but prints at 1200dpi. It produces nice crisp prints that hold up well when viewed under magnification. The only downside of a mono laser is not being able to print faux tropical dials in colour, but at the price it’s hard to complain!

 

[SCShrek]

If your printer won’t print at high enough dpi, messing with the source image resolution won’t make any difference. Cheap inkjet printers will generally print at 300dpi, perhaps 600. For good dial prints you need a printer that will output at 1200dpi.

I recently took a chance on a cheap Samsung Xpress M2026 laser printer from Amazon. It was only £43, but prints at 1200dpi. It produces nice crisp prints that hold up well when viewed under magnification. The only downside of a mono laser is not being able to print faux tropical dials in colour, but at the price it’s hard to complain!

Are the files public if you're completely inexperienced with Adobe software? <--- translated as: Is all the hard work already done for me somewhere?

 

[p0pperini]

Are the files public if you're completely inexperienced with Adobe software? <--- translated as: Is all the hard work already done for me somewhere?

The files that Bart made available can be downloaded from the thread. I would be happy to make my own Illustrator and Photoshop files available for download, should they be of use to anyone. I’ve done 5513, 6538 and GMT dials. I don’t make any guarantees as to their accuracy or usefulness!

 

[SCShrek]

The files that Bart made available can be downloaded from the thread. I would be happy to make my own Illustrator and Photoshop files available for download, should they be of use to anyone. I’ve done 5513, 6538 and GMT dials. I don’t make any guarantees as to their accuracy or usefulness!

That would be great. Bart Cordell manodeoro ...any chance of reposting the files, I believe the original links are gone from the posts. I started working on my own but am struggling mightily with Photoshop.

 

[chrome72]

Gilt decal lumed up (by Kilowattore). For anyone reading this, the gilt decal process really isn't complicated and its a massive night and day difference in terms of dial appearance vs stock or gold paint.

 

[Long Life]

Gilt decal lumed up (by Kilowattore). For anyone reading this, the gilt decal process really isn't complicated and its a massive night and day difference in terms of dial appearance vs stock or gold paint.

very interesting since there are more opinions, what was your process