Decal printed dial

[dpd3672]

Good Day Gents

I have had this idea for a minuite but wanted to see what some of the dial makers in here think about it.

raffles now offers sterile dials. My thought is to buy a few of them. do some tropical air brush work on the dial and then apply a modified decal dial over top of the air brush work to create a unique tropical dial

Some of you have been following my thread on tropical dials and the main issue I have , even with using candy paints is that it is difficult to do without overspray on the text.

example of my tropical dial air brush work.
cool on the wrist but sketch under macro.

IF I was better at lume. I would just do a negative relief gilt dial , apply the decal. air brush the tropical effect and then wash off the decal to reveal the neg gilt and then clear and lume. but I wonder how difficult it would be to wash away the decal and not wash away the paint. or will the paint prevent the decal stencil from washing off.

did a test colour sample on a blank raffles sent to me when we were developing the tropical dials.

or an easier method would be : I would start with blanks but my lume work isnt pro so buying this dial with the lume done seems ideal.

buy a few of these unbranded dials
air brush unique tropical fades onto the dial surface.
apply gilt print decal dial (film or filmless ) over top the paint work.
then you get a clean looking tropical dial without overspray onto the print.

can you get a nice gold color print on a decal ? I know its not neg relief but we can have it all , can we.
as long as the paint on the decal was similar or close to the paint color used on the dial for the chapter ring markers.

My call out to any dial maker out there... who would be interested in working together on this.

if you can print off a sheet of gold print decals for the explorer I will buy some of these unbranded dials, air brush fades into them and send them to you so you can print and apply the decal on top of the dial. I will pay for the materials, prints and time , and of course you get a tropical dial for your troubles. who doesn't want to add a tropical dial explorer to their collection??

HMU if you are interested or we can group work this project and see what we come up with.
feedback welcome

I love a challenge, trying to see if there's a good gold foil decal paper out there.
Although laser engraving or pad printing might be better.

 

[chrome72]

I love a challenge, trying to see if there's a good gold foil decal paper out there.
Although laser engraving or pad printing might be better.

There is gold foil out there but you need to have toner for the foil to adhere to. I tried this awhile back and with such tiny text the foil has a hard time pulling off of the small spaces within the letters like the letter “P” so letters get filled in. I never had success the few times I tried. I wanted it to work though.

Your airbrushing looks awesome by the way.

 

[WatchN3RD]

Good Day Gents

I have had this idea for a minuite but wanted to see what some of the dial makers in here think about it.

raffles now offers sterile dials. My thought is to buy a few of them. do some tropical air brush work on the dial and then apply a modified decal dial over top of the air brush work to create a unique tropical dial

Some of you have been following my thread on tropical dials and the main issue I have , even with using candy paints is that it is difficult to do without overspray on the text.

example of my tropical dial air brush work.
cool on the wrist but sketch under macro.

IF I was better at lume. I would just do a negative relief gilt dial , apply the decal. air brush the tropical effect and then wash off the decal to reveal the neg gilt and then clear and lume. but I wonder how difficult it would be to wash away the decal and not wash away the paint. or will the paint prevent the decal stencil from washing off.

did a test colour sample on a blank raffles sent to me when we were developing the tropical dials.

or an easier method would be : I would start with blanks but my lume work isnt pro so buying this dial with the lume done seems ideal.

buy a few of these unbranded dials
air brush unique tropical fades onto the dial surface.
apply gilt print decal dial (film or filmless ) over top the paint work.
then you get a clean looking tropical dial without overspray onto the print.

can you get a nice gold color print on a decal ? I know its not neg relief but we can have it all , can we.
as long as the paint on the decal was similar or close to the paint color used on the dial for the chapter ring markers.

My call out to any dial maker out there... who would be interested in working together on this.

if you can print off a sheet of gold print decals for the explorer I will buy some of these unbranded dials, air brush fades into them and send them to you so you can print and apply the decal on top of the dial. I will pay for the materials, prints and time , and of course you get a tropical dial for your troubles. who doesn't want to add a tropical dial explorer to their collection??

HMU if you are interested or we can group work this project and see what we come up with.
feedback welcome

This must be my favorite thread, as there's nothing more desirable than a nice gilt dial for vintage lovers.
But unfortunately, you won't achieve an impressive gilt with foil. It would create a positive relief, and if you applied a thick enough clear to make the surface flat enough so no relief exists, the extra thick clear coat won't make the metallic parts "pop" more. It's really the slightly imperfect reflections of actual brass against the contrasting background that create the warm, holographic effect. A negative relief enhances it that much more.

Abandon the foil idea but please join in on the never ending quest for a perfect gilt!

Your weathering techniques are very impressive, and those subtleties always carry over to somewhat similar situations. But once you fall into the gilt rabbit hole, you'll never be satisfied by foil or metallic paint.

What about Raffles making some brass blanks with a white base for lume already applied? Just a thin coat of industrial epoxy or UV solder mask so it's much more resistant to chemicals when you need reapply the toner transfer for a 3rd try?

 

[aphmars13]

I've just noticed that I haven't been back on this thread for a while. Always great discoveries. I must get back to it. @369mafia a lovely tropical @janneau Print quality is great Very original dials

 

[matzemedia]

Oh ... nice. There is action again on this thread. I mostly post at the parallel chat "How to make a true gilt dial on the cheap - Tropical or Black" and with some up and downs, I am still interested at the perfect gilt dial. The dream would having a workshop with you, where we can figure out the best way to do it and have all the tools we need. But that's difficult when you consider how far apart we live.

My printer is not good enough to help with any printer relevant method @369mafia . But I will watch the process with enthusiasm

There are currently two thinks I like to discuss with you:
1. Should we order together a blank gmt dial. I have been asked a seller from alibaba. He send me a offer 50 dials for 250 EUR (incl. shippment)
2. Why have gen gilt dials sometimes white/silver shining letters instead of gold? And how can we recreate this effect.

 

[aphmars13]

I'd scratched the one I'd made and wasn't happy with. I'm not happy with this one either, but it will still go in my watch.

 

[aphmars13]

Oh ... nice. There is action again on this thread. I mostly post at the parallel chat "How to make a true gilt dial on the cheap - Tropical or Black" and with some up and downs, I am still interested at the perfect gilt dial. The dream would having a workshop with you, where we can figure out the best way to do it and have all the tools we need. But that's difficult when you consider how far apart we live.

My printer is not good enough to help with any printer relevant method @369mafia . But I will watch the process with enthusiasm

There are currently two thinks I like to discuss with you:
1. Should we order together a blank gmt dial. I have been asked a seller from alibaba. He send me a offer 50 dials for 250 EUR (incl. shippment)
2. Why have gen gilt dials sometimes white/silver shining letters instead of gold? And how can we recreate this effect.

Not quite answering your questions, but I was thinking of using a stencil and a fine spray of white paint beforehand, just on the index part, to improve the rendering before applying the decal. Because that's what worries me - you can see that the indexes are white and give a light tint to the lume. On the last dial I did, I tried to paint it white by hand before applying the lume but it shows, I painted over the varnish... I'd like to apply the white just after polishing

 

[aphmars13]

 

[aphmars13]

 

[matzemedia]

Nice Bart Simpson!

 

[janneau]

Attempt at a red text 'GMT Master'

 

[jamiex]

I love a challenge, trying to see if there's a good gold foil decal paper out there.
Although laser engraving or pad printing might be better.

Just put gold leaf onto the dial before you put your decal on the dial, Bart Cordell was doing it and it's pretty cheap to do.

 

[turbo911]

planning to start with the decal dials for some of my projects. I want to try the waterslide decals method (not the film-free ones) and i am quite confused about which printer to get for the project.

plan was an inkjet and liked the pixma pro 100 results from backst0p
but its discontinued and the pro 200 is a bit over my budget just for that one project. the newer foto printers mostly feature "only" 4800x1200 dpi like the Canon Pixma TS705a

can anyone recommend a well priced inkjet printer?

 

[chrome72]

Anyone have any vectorized 6538 or 6542 designs? I have used vector using tools for the various pngs out there but for some reason the 6538 and 6542 text just doesn’t to want to vectorize properly. It loses fidelity of the shape of the fonts.

 

[jamiex]

Anyone have any vectorized 6538 or 6542 designs? I have used vector using tools for the various pngs out there but for some reason the 6538 and 6542 text just doesn’t to want to vectorize properly. It loses fidelity of the shape of the fonts.

Check your emails mate.
It's not the best but it's not half bad.

 

[Singapore9]

I've got some great pics and scans of my GEN Tudor 9411 dials but I'll be damned if I can work out how to use the Inkscape I downloaded

 

[extreme^]

Check your emails mate.
It's not the best but it's not half bad.

Could you also DM me the 6542 dial? Thank you so much!

 

[jamiex]

Could you also DM me the 6542 dial? Thank you so much!

Check your DM's.