the dial being 31mm, I have a fall back option with this Raffles Dial.
@dpd3672 do you think you help me print film free waterslide decals of the Railmaster ? I will do the work of vector and clean. I am unsure though of how to print "white"
I will be ordering some from AliX . those are impossible to find in France
I will still buy the Bi dial as it will be the reference for us
Yes, happy to help.
As 369mafia says, there's a few ways to do it. It looks to me like the dial is black, with mostly white printing, although the "Seamaster" is beige or off-white, unless my eyes deceive. The indices every 5 minute look like they're lumed over white.
So these are the options that come to me:
1) If printed on
white decal paper, the white print would be white...you could possibly also print the "Seamaster" in what looks like an off-white (yellow? beige? I can't really tell). The issue is that when I've tried this, the white appears very dull and flat, which is not how gen dials usually look. Spraying over it with gloss clear acrylic paint might mitigate that considerably, I haven't gone too far down this road yet. If the original dial is flat, it might not look so bad, especially if you seal it with flat clear acrylic. It's also possible to paint the dial with white paint to enhance the white under the decal.
2) On clear decal paper, the gilt underneath the dial would show through, so what's white on the original dial would appear gold and shiny. If the dial underneath was painted white, it would be very similar to the above. Experimenting with different white paint underneath would give slightly different results.
3) Film free decal paper is something I'm just starting to work with (because it's hard as hell to source in the US, and shipping is brutal from Korea, where it's made). I think it has the most potential...I'd use it over the decals with film if given the choice, but that would make the beige "Seamaster" a bit more difficult to color match.
4) Some kind of heat transfer paper...pretty much the same as decals, but it would be another option. It would have to go over a white, painted dial as well, and would give the same issues with the beige font.
5) A "sticker." Basically, print the entire dial on a sticker...paper, vinyl, pvc, any material that matches the dial in texture/sheen. This is the easiest route, but can give issues with any kind of work you want to do to the dial after, if paint or lume or whatever can't adhere to the sticker (should be fine with paper, maybe not so great with vinyl).
6) No idea if this is even possible, but coat a brass dial blank with glossy porcelain, bake it, then put a negative print decal over that...or paint it black and laser etch away the "white" parts. It would look amazing, but I can't even imagine how hard this would be to do.
www.esslinger.com
