How to make a true gilt dial on the cheap - Tropical or Black

[WatchN3RD]

Well, I just follow the instruction of the film free decals paper I've ordered. In my case, there was a Video instruction that was great. For the heat, I have to put it into the heater at 120 degree. I think each film free decals are different, so it may not help you to explain my option.

I polished the dial before at my lathe. I put double site tape at the back and stick it to a metal and rotate it. Then I used sandpaper from 280 ... 5000.

I assumed you were using Sunnyscopa. Did you use a different brand? When you say 120 degrees, is this 120 degrees celsius in the oven?

Again, thank you. I have sunnyscopa but don't want to waste it by doing wrong.

 

[matzemedia]

I assumed you were using Sunnyscopa. Did you use a different brand? When you say 120 degrees, is this 120 degrees celsius in the oven?

Again, thank you. I have sunnyscopa but don't want to waste it by doing wrong.

It is not sunnyscope but similar. A Asia brand. But they use the same Video tutorial. Yes I heat it up to 120 degrees celsius in the oven, remove the first paper and put it again at 180 degrees celsius in the oven.

I just print one dial each time. Therefor I cut just a small peace (3x4cm) of film free decals and use a sticker (tesa) to fix it at the middle of a A4 paper. This saves a lot of paper.

 

[WatchN3RD]

Did a couple or three tests last night when I was wrestling some alligators. I did not win, but I did keep all my limbs.

 

[WatchN3RD]

I should mention, I accidentally printed out an entire sheet with the wrong print settings. There's a large weft, wove, crosshatch, Harris Tweed in what should be all solid black. But, the above photos are my results and something's not right.

 

[WatchN3RD]

So, out of frustration, and seeing air pockets develop when trying to embed the toner, I thought... hmmm. Perhaps I should make the film barely cover the outside and cut breather holes in the center and date window? And then, just torch it!

It's only a test, but the results are much better!

 

[matzemedia]

I created two more gilt dials. Both are more brown and less dark black. It is really difficult to create a good picture that shows the shiny effect of this true guilt method.

Here two of the dials with lume. The Submariner letters are not too small and get a nice result. Tomorrow i will take a picture of the hole watch.

 

[matzemedia]

So, out of frustration, and seeing air pockets develop when trying to embed the toner, I thought... hmmm. Perhaps I should make the film barely cover the outside and cut breather holes in the center and date window? And then, just torch it!

It's only a test, but the results are much better!

I had the same problem, when I tried the film free methode: boubles and not full black. I also tried to put two layer of toner at it. But I can't fit the second exactly to the first layer.
Go for it and let us know if you find a way.

 

[WatchN3RD]

Matz, you're already 97% there. I'm pretty jealous. Have you thought about a safe method to "sand" the indices (lume plots) to the same height after initial lume, and then do I final pass for the puffiness and uniformity?
That'll be my next hurdle if I get the dials and printer settings right first!

 

[matzemedia]

Matz, you're already 97% there. I'm pretty jealous. Have you thought about a safe method to "sand" the indices (lume plots) to the same height after initial lume, and then do I final pass for the puffiness and uniformity?
That'll be my next hurdle if I get the dials and printer settings right first!

Thanks for the praise! Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with the Lume method yet. This is now my 5th dial that I have applied Lume to. In my opinion, it's definitely worth its own thread.
However, I am very happy with the result on both dials. Especially as I managed to achieve a small curvature (puffiness). For both dials, I first drew the edge as precisely as possible with lume and then applied some fresh lume to the centre - wet in wet. This resulted in a small puffiness. I can also recommend using good base materials. This was the first time I worked with Bergon lacquer and thinner. It works much better than my homemade paints.

I once applied an extra curvature to a Yuki dial. The Yuki dials have virtually no curvature on the dots. It wasn't that easy and the result wasn't that convincing either. But I've never thought about sanding - especially as it doesn't prevent you from working unevenly again in the last gear.

I'm thinking more about sanding the dial again after painting. I did that once. Unfortunately without much success. I might have to work with finer sandpaper here.

 

[matzemedia]

And here the final picture. I realy like the shinny gilt looking. In every light it looks a bit different.

 

[WatchN3RD]

I'm with you, and a macro photo of just the dial will show everything, whereas the dial inside a watch shows so much less. Especially in real life without a macro lens. Your watch and dial above look magnificent.

So, I'm not suggesting you fix something that isn't broken. I've just been thinking about the capillary effect working in our favor if we focused on the puffiness of the lume as a final step.
1) perfect the lume placement
2) sand to equal flatness
3) final pass to add puffiness where the lume is only drawn to previous lume (perfectly placed).

Please don't ruin the dial above. It's beautiful.

 

[matzemedia]

That was for sure the most difficult process I have done for watch parts.

After reading and asking several people here, I decided to give it a try. It was December when I start ordering parts like dials, liquid,... . I even convinced my family that we needed a laser printer.

My first attempts were disappointing. Especially the toner transfer get me the most problem. It doesn't stick correctly at the brass. Thanks to @chrome72 who always motivated me and gave me tips. I tried different liquids, used my iron and ended up by using film free decals to get the best result for the toner transfer. Because I did a lot of my work in the kitchen, my daughter asked if we eat dials today ;-)

And don't forget the work at the computer. I worked several hours to create a vector based file and still correct it by changing the line thickness ...

But the result is phenomenal. Here some picture of the process:

Toner transfered dial:


blacked the brass with liquid:


remove the toner with aceton:


finished dial (without lacquer):


dial with lacquer:


Keep your fingers crossed that I get the lume applied well. That's not one of my strengths ;-)

In the meantime, I created a bunch of different dials with this method. A lot of them were crap but some look nice. I have discovered one point that I would like to share with you: After I put the dial into the liquid bath I can change the deep black color by putting it into the heater for 180°C.

_ If I clean the dial with water before - it gets gray
_ If I leave the dial wet (from the liquid) - it gets dark black
_ If I touch it with my fingers - the fingerprint will stay at the dial (so, I use a fork and place it carefully on a plate)
_ If I use the liquid more than 3 times for different dials - the dial is getting brown and lighter

May I can ask you to try it? Remove the dial out of the liquid and put it directly into a heater for 10 Minutes (and 180°C). I would like to know it this is only working with my liquid (Ballistol Nerofor).

 

[WatchN3RD]

I'm just going through the incorrectly-printed positives I accidentally printed. I've yet to print any negatives for a true gilt because I'm just burning these crap 600dpi testing out the transfer process... and different patinas that one would find on a flea market watch found at the bottom of the ocean. I hope to try the actual gilt method next week.

 

[WatchN3RD]

Are you using 2400dpi files? Would you mind sharing the specs of the printer you're using? I think my home printer is 600 x 1200 but does "four levels". Pictures above are of the low quality print settings, but I'm curious if the best settings will be enough.

 

[matzemedia]

I'am using a 2400 x 600 dpi printer from brother ( hl-l8260cdw). My files are created with 600 dpi. But I am not realy happy with the print result. That is still one of my biggest issue. I currently don't know how I can setup my printer driver to the highest resolution.

 

[WatchN3RD]

My prints are not worth a damn. It also seems the texture of the paper is further reducing the quality. I know I've had better results using both decal and transparent paper in the past.

 

[bigtiddygothgf]

from what i understand when a printer prints 600 x WXYZ DPI its really just 600dpi, so if you want any higher youd need a 1200x1200 printer

 

[chrome72]

from what i understand when a printer prints 600 x WXYZ DPI its really just 600dpi, so if you want any higher youd need a 1200x1200 printer

There’s a rabbit hole with printer resolution and printer drivers….

 

[chrome72]

While not a gilt dial it’s a similar idea. I want to etch a design into a caseback. I took an ac to 12v 2am dc adapter. Split the end and put alligator clips on. Applied my toner mask to scrap metal via heat and pressure. Attached the positive lead to my metal and the negative one to a qtip soaked in salt water and plugged in my adapter. After maybe a minute of etching I washed off the metal and removed the toner mask. Then applied a little bit of acid to darken the recessed areas then light sanded.


It’s a promising start.

 

[WatchN3RD]

I'm still only using the toner transfer for now, but I've adjusted my print settings from pure black to rich black. I also reduced the cyan amount for a more brown black when printing black with CMYK instead of just K. Only tried it one dial but the results are much better. The print file could use some cleaning up too. Just happy to be moving in the right direction again.