First attempt at using a fibre laser, a little to much power I think.
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Making a gilt dial (not decal)
- Thread starter chrome72
- Start date
First attempt at using a fibre laser, a little to much power I think.
Nice! My 3D stamp should be in early next week and I’m hoping for a nice crisp mask.
Nice one mate, I’m going to have a few more goes tomorrow on a lower power and bigger line gaps with more passes which should hopefully sort out a couple of the issues. I’m not holding out too much hope though, I think the focal point of the laser is too big and that’s going to mess up the smaller writing and theres no way around that.
Got my 3D stamp In today. Essentially it’s a reversed image and inspecting it in the light the font looks amazing. Very surprised at the level of detail a stamp can get. This will be my masking utensil and will take the place of a pad printer which I assume is what Rolex used for masking. I have a crystal clear acrylic block that I can see through to get very good alignment of stamped image into the brass dial, I’m sure I’ll be a tiny fraction off but it shouldn’t be too noticeable. I’ll be attempting test one with this tomorrow.
What is nice with this is I can self select what Ink color goes on what part of the stamp so if I get really good alignment I can stamp selective text post lacquering giving me the depth font.
chrome72 This is absolutely stellar progress. I’m really excited to see how the stamp image looks when printed.
I wonder whether it might help to have a central registration mark on the stamp - a crosshair or series of circles - to help when lining up the stamp over the dial blank. I’m just thinking it may be easier than trying to eyeball the chapter ring relative to the edges. It would be an additional guide, anyway.
A further thought about the solid stamp. My concern would be that by using a solid surface to transfer the ink to another solid surface, there's going to be an amount of spread, as the ink is sandwiched between two unyielding surfaces. So while I'm excited to see how this will turn out, I'm also slightly concerned - it could be a frustrating process!
I wonder if you'd considered screen printing the mask image on the dial, using a screen prepared from the artwork? This is also a service available from Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/6925...on0=1088662814
I wonder whether it might help to have a central registration mark on the stamp - a crosshair or series of circles - to help when lining up the stamp over the dial blank. I’m just thinking it may be easier than trying to eyeball the chapter ring relative to the edges. It would be an additional guide, anyway.
A further thought about the solid stamp. My concern would be that by using a solid surface to transfer the ink to another solid surface, there's going to be an amount of spread, as the ink is sandwiched between two unyielding surfaces. So while I'm excited to see how this will turn out, I'm also slightly concerned - it could be a frustrating process!
I wonder if you'd considered screen printing the mask image on the dial, using a screen prepared from the artwork? This is also a service available from Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/6925...on0=1088662814
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Here is my first real attempt with the stamp. The print is more crisp. Learning lessons here are the dial needs to be anchored down to something prior to being stamped to enable uniform pressure. Since my stamp wasnt anchored down I didn’t capture the full stamp. On paper the stamp looks perfect. I know I can get similar results on the brass as well.
When removing the ink with acetone it does move out the soft outer layer of the black oxide. If anyone is attempting this you will probably need to use steel wool 0000 before removing the ink to make sure all the black oxide is smooth.
sorry for posting as is progress and not some
Grand reveal. Just excited to share.
When removing the ink with acetone it does move out the soft outer layer of the black oxide. If anyone is attempting this you will probably need to use steel wool 0000 before removing the ink to make sure all the black oxide is smooth.
sorry for posting as is progress and not some
Grand reveal. Just excited to share.
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bigtiddygothgf
Active Member
- 7/10/18
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since the dial is being plated with the black finish, would polishing the blank beforehand yield a glossy finish in the black even before applying any sort of lacquer or clearcoat afterwards?
I don’t think so. I haven’t seen any difference on black in polished Vs non polished brass dials.
Here is my first real attempt with the stamp. The print is more crisp. Learning lessons here are the dial needs to be anchored down to something prior to being stamped to enable uniform pressure. Since my stamp wasnt anchored down I didn’t capture the full stamp. On paper the stamp looks perfect. I know I can get similar results on the brass as well.
When removing the ink with acetone it does move out the soft outer layer of the black oxide. If anyone is attempting this you will probably need to use steel wool 0000 before removing the ink to make sure all the black oxide is smooth.
sorry for posting as is progress and not some
Grand reveal. Just excited to share.
Youre doing great and thanks for sharing all these attempts, it shows how much work is done behind the scenes
This last one looks very promising imho. I'm also curious to see.how the lacquer will affect the black.
chrome72, could you not have something machined like this to hold your dial in place while you stamp it, it would also help with the uniformity of the stamp.
Sorry for the rough job but it’s obviously not to scale, I just knocked something up quick. The two small holes are for the dial feet.
Sorry for the rough job but it’s obviously not to scale, I just knocked something up quick. The two small holes are for the dial feet.
that is a lot more high tech than my idea of taping it down or using a finishing nail through a piece of cardboard to hold it down.
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If cardboard works then it works, but if you need something like this give me a shout and I’ll get a proper model knocked up for your local machinist to make.
Not a progress report but more info.
Heard back from a few other watch makers on what they use:
ChronoSwiss watches: they use black nickel and get some really nice blacks on their watches.
Lang & Heyne: Black nickel
I had a good chat with Caswell plating company (they sell kits and plating solutions). They told me their copy/cad zinc plating is the only solution they have that you could apply their black chromate to to get a black dial. However, their black chromate would be reflective of what is beneath it, which would be shiny zinc, meaning the black would come out metallic which is not what I am aiming for, plus their smallest kit for it costs $200+. Birchwood Casey sells a zinc plating kit but their zinc blackener wont give you very black results on plated zinc, only true zinc. JAX is another supplier of zinc blackener and they told me for zinc plated materials, their blackener would be hit or miss and not consistent.
So it sounds like black zinc is the winner if you want to go with a galvanic coating that is a smooth deep black.
Heard back from a few other watch makers on what they use:
ChronoSwiss watches: they use black nickel and get some really nice blacks on their watches.
Lang & Heyne: Black nickel
I had a good chat with Caswell plating company (they sell kits and plating solutions). They told me their copy/cad zinc plating is the only solution they have that you could apply their black chromate to to get a black dial. However, their black chromate would be reflective of what is beneath it, which would be shiny zinc, meaning the black would come out metallic which is not what I am aiming for, plus their smallest kit for it costs $200+. Birchwood Casey sells a zinc plating kit but their zinc blackener wont give you very black results on plated zinc, only true zinc. JAX is another supplier of zinc blackener and they told me for zinc plated materials, their blackener would be hit or miss and not consistent.
So it sounds like black zinc is the winner if you want to go with a galvanic coating that is a smooth deep black.
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chrome72, could you not have something machined like this to hold your dial in place while you stamp it, it would also help with the uniformity of the stamp.
Sorry for the rough job but it’s obviously not to scale, I just knocked something up quick. The two small holes are for the dial feet.
I just tinkered with duct tape and i got an almost 85% impression. I need to tinker with the amount of ink on the stamp itself to make sure i am not getting globby prints.
Tinkered with heat press toner transfer for giggle after talking to a guy who ha made pcb boards using this method and got this. Promising but the Rolex crown for some reason came out blobby when removing toner transfer when in the non coated dial it’s clean. Not sure if this has something to do with heat or pressure. Applied 2 quick coats of lacquer.
In terms of the crown I’m hoping plating will give me more precise results in terms of coating.
one thing I noticed is the tiny brass dots in the dial. Anyone know what they are?
one thing I noticed is the tiny brass dots in the dial. Anyone know what they are?
- 13/10/16
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Tinkered with heat press toner transfer for giggle after talking to a guy who ha made pcb boards using this method and got this. Promising but the Rolex crown for some reason came out blobby when removing toner transfer when in the non coated dial it’s clean. Not sure if this has something to do with heat or pressure. Applied 2 quick coats of lacquer.
Buddy ... because of you I'll have to try again the coating method this weekend ... LOL
Nevertheless, we're still really far from what we can achieve using film-free decal
