Dial 232 not centered, misalligned

[Major Tom]

Hi Guys,

Need some advice. Received PAM 232 and didn´t see it at first, but looking back at the QC pictures I noticed that the dial seemed misalligned i.e. not centered, noticable at the logo, and numbers. Like I said I didn´t see it at first.

After receiving the watch I noticed the hour hand was bend/pointing upwards which bothered me (I see this quite often btw, even in gen´s). Dealer offered to send it to his watch guy at his expense, but I decided to do it myself, I mean sending back and forth a watch to bend down the hour hand 1mm seemed a bit stupid.

So I ventured in my first attempt to take out a movement, with the help of an excellent youtube vid. Took movement out and pressed the hour hand carefully down so that it was horizontal in line with the dial/minute hand. Put everything back together and very happy about the result, and content with my achievement as a noob watch smit.

After been flashing it :B:, later that day the 232 was lying next to a 372 (good company btw) and all of a sudden I noticed the off centered dial. Dealer´s respons was that it was optical, but I disagree. Anyway, that´s not the issue as the dealer will come up with a solution one way or the other, at his expense.

My question is if there is a simple way to rotate the dial (a little anti clockwise) without having to take the movement apart? Is the dial glued to the movement? Or will loosening up some screws will do it? Any help is much appreciated. If to difficult I will follow dealer´s advise, weather he will offer to send it to the watch smit or sends a new movement/dial.

Thanks

 

[Juraj_G]

To me, it looks aligned, cant help myself

Here is mine for reference


Sent from the RWI mobile app

 

[mysterio]

The dial is screwed into the movement at specific points on the back side of the dial, so even though you might be able to separate the lume dial from the cutout dial, the lume might then be misaligned relative to the cutouts.

Honestly I can't tell whether the dial is really misaligned or it's an optical illusion as your TD states.

 

[Major Tom]

To me, it looks aligned, cant help myself

Here is mine for reference


Sent from the RWI mobile app

Buggers, to me it seems not alligned at all. Notice how the 5 o´clock marker points to the corner/bend of the wire lug, and the 7 o´clock point to (almost) where the lug goes into the hole. Same for the 11 and 1 o´clock, and the logo slightly falling to the right. Yours looks a bit better than mine. Maybe I need an eye correction
Is this the latest DSN as well? It´s a great looking watch though.

@mysterio Thanks for explaining that. So, if you want to correct this you need both a new lume plate, and a new cut out plate to be sure it´s undamaged (as I assume it will be difficult to loosen the cut out without bending/damaging it). If this is an issue with the whole batch it´s tempting to say it´s an optical illusion.

 

[Juraj_G]

Very quick comparison with gen. To me it seems like there is rather a problem with the cutouts of the markers, than with the alingnement. In any case, you need to study it really closely, in real life - not noticeable. And, the real thing goes for 6K eur, this one is 280 USD incl. shipping. This is more than amazing value for this price


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[Major Tom]

Agreed, but the quality of the cutouts fall into the "280 vs 6k" excuus in my opinion. Centering the dial does not fall into that category as it´s down to basic mechanics/measurement of the overall build and no special/expensive tools are needed. The misallignment of the dial is a big tell, altough I don´t care much about that, bought it because I like the watch/design. Besides that, it´s very annoying. I will see what Dave says. If there is no easy solution I´m going to return the watch and await the 21

Thanks for your help!

 

[Robert11]

Do you still have a picture of it before you removed the movement for comparison? When you put the movement back you may not have aligned it fully if there was some play. To me it looks aligned at the 3 but not at 12 and 6. Try seeing if you can just pivot the entire movement around the stem counter clockwise.


Sent from my satellite phone.

 

[Major Tom]

Do you still have a picture of it before you removed the movement for comparison? When you put the movement back you may not have aligned it fully if there was some play. To me it looks aligned at the 3 but not at 12 and 6. Try seeing if you can just pivot the entire movement around the stem counter clockwise.


Sent from my satellite phone.

Attached QC picture in it´s original state.

 

[Major Tom]

Do you still have a picture of it before you removed the movement for comparison? When you put the movement back you may not have aligned it fully if there was some play. To me it looks aligned at the 3 but not at 12 and 6. Try seeing if you can just pivot the entire movement around the stem counter clockwise.


Sent from my satellite phone.

There is no noticable play when the stem is in position. When the dial is alligned, which is about 1 mm anti clockwise, the stem won´t go in at all.

 

[Major Tom]

One more to illustrate

 

[mysterio]

Discuss it with Dave (DSN?) and show him the pictures. Maybe he will be open to shipping you a aligned dial.

 

[mskwatch]

Sometimes if you know there's an imperfection you tend to see it more. That's what happened with this thread. First pic seemed relatively ok to me, but after seeing the drawings and comparisons I understand your concern and have to admit that the dial is not aligned. Good luck with fixing it!

 

[Major Tom]

@mskwatch Sure, and thanks

Ok @mysterio Already did, awaiting his reply. Thanks!

 

[kilowattore]

Dial looks fine to me tbh. These are rather tricky to judge since there really is no aligning point to take as reference.
In any case it's not hard to change the alignment, either remove dial and movement then twist the dial so you bend the feet slightly or remove them and attach the dial with dial dots

 

[kilowattore]

@Juraj_G I agree the biggest issue with this di al are cutouts, I noticed the same on mine

 

[Major Tom]

Dial looks fine to me tbh. These are rather tricky to judge since there really is no aligning point to take as reference.
In any case it's not hard to change the alignment, either remove dial and movement then twist the dial so you bend the feet slightly or remove them and attach the dial with dial dots

Do you mean to bend the stem slightly?

 

[mysterio]

Dial looks fine to me tbh. These are rather tricky to judge since there really is no aligning point to take as reference.
In any case it's not hard to change the alignment, either remove dial and movement then twist the dial so you bend the feet slightly or remove them and attach the dial with dial dots

Thanks for chiming in.

 

[kilowattore]

Do you mean to bend the stem slightly?

No. Dial.is attached to.the movement with two thin metal pins. The idea is if you twist the dial clockwise or anti-clockwise maybe you can slightly bend the pins and get a better alignment.

 

[iPisi70]

One more to illustrate

I believe your red lines doesn”t match - horizontal line should go through center of crown and CP and it definitely didn”t. So I agree with @killowattore it can make illusion of rotated dial. Lugs are bent, not straight like in Luminor cases and watches can easily be not perpendicular with strap. It can be another point for illusion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mysterio]

I believe your red lines doesn”t match - horizontal line should go through center of crown and CP and it definitely didn”t. So I agree with @killowattore it can make illusion of rotated dial. Lugs are bent, not straight like in Luminor cases and watches can easily be not perpendicular with strap. It can be another point for illusion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here's an adjusted look at the watch (sorry for the many lines :lol

i have another theory. I first centered using the crown going through the CP and made a perpendicular line going through the CP for the center reference. I also measured the left (orange solid) and right (orange broken) to the markers and they seem equidistant to the center line. However I thought of placing the same pairs of lines from the center line to the opposite corners of the lugs and you can see a significant distance on the right side (because of the dotted line falls short of the corner). But on the top lugs, you can see the opposite is true, the distance to the right is shorter compared to the left side. Might it be possible for the holes for the lugs were not drilled in at the correct positions thereby making the dial look offset with reference to the strap center (which is what the red line seems to be following)?