Painting an engraved dial - quick tutorial!

[rmcsherry]

This is a straight-forward tutorial to respray an engraved dial (for those of you who bought any dials from my previous project).

Here's a couple of dials that were ruined during painting -

All you have to do to remove the old paint is to use Acetone (nail varnish remover), and a cloth. It might take 5 minutes to remove, but it should come off easily enough:

...if it doesn't, soak it in acetone for a short while, and remove the paint with a soft edge (a finger nail will do!):

Once the paint has been removed, you'll still have the wax in the engraving. There are 2 methods to remove this - to use a needle to carefully remove any wax (don't scratch the dial), or to heat gently with a lighter from underneath - hold with pliers, and remove any excess with a damp cloth.

You should now have a plain brass dial with engraved text. Pick your paint (a matt spray, or even car body paint will work well):

...if you're really feeling fancy, an airbrush will give better effects - I'm yet to buy one! Give the dials a few light coats of paint - you can always use brown as a primer, and black as a top coat to give a slight-browness to the dial:

You'll now have a painted dial. To fill the text, use a white wax crayon, and rub in a circular motion over the text:

... the excess wax can be used with a cloth with a very small amount of turpentine / acetone on it. It's best to put some liquid on the cloth, and give it a few minutes to evaporate off. If this method doesn't work for you, spraying the painted dial with a matt clear-coat prior to colouring the text will allow for the wax to be easily removed with a damp lint-free cloth.

...and close ups!

The text looks strange under a macro lens, but to the naked eye, it's fine. If you want a smoother, crisper finish, use the clear-coat method prior to applying the wax - a soft damp cloth will leave a much cleaner finish.

That's it - I won't cover vintage techniques on a dial (as I'm no expert) but this should get your dial to a good standard to allow any further aging. I hope this helps somebody!

[Chino]

double post deleted.

keep it up!

cheers.

Chino.

PS- added: just checked the whole post, and that's an amazing job, it's impressive how you did that! Great job and pics, awsome!

[fishgodeep]

Brilliant Ross ...fantastic results and you make it look so easy!!!

Cheers

Simon

FGD

[RWG Technical]

Very well documented. I would never have considered using wax to fill the lettering, great tip.

RG

[dluddy]

So that's how it is done.

Brilliant Ross

Thanks for sharing

[rmcsherry]

Glad to help. The results aren't perfect - if you spend longer painting with an airbrush, the sky's your limit! As far as I know, the vintage Panerai dials used a white oil-based wax for the text - I've used what was to hand, but some old material houses still stock the original white watchmakers wax. Giving it a wipe with turpentine makes the wax thinner (a constant thickness around the letters, rather than a very thick concentration in the middle).

[siesta181]

Thanks for taking the time to put this. Much appreciated.

[dadog13]

Brilliant Ross ...fantastic results and you make it look so easy!!!

Cheers

Simon

FGD

Thanks for the tutorial!

and I agree with FGD...the results are fantastic and reading this great post it looks so easy...

thanks R for being so helpful all the time!

[Stephane]

Very impressive

Thanks for sharing this.

Very good looking dial in my opinion.

Cheers

Stephane

[VDBroucke]

fantastic work R.

i think the old paneristis have a method in 90% same...

[tmg]

Great tutorial post RMC.

That's what I love about this place!!!

[FxrAndy]

Wax eh i would have never though it, i would have thought white paint and then wipe off the exess but wax looks so much easyer.

[turboGUATE]

Basic teaching for the vintage lover. THANKS!

[TeeJay]

Interesting indeed, thanks for sharing

[Watchmeister]

Great tutorial. Much thanks for sharing this. Happy Holidays.

[rmcsherry]

Here's a gen 6152 image which clearly shows remnants of wax on the dial from filling the engraved text.

...it also shows the rather unusual bezel construction that prevents any fiddy-based homage from being accurate!

[old skool]

Awesome. Thanks.

[Krayfish]

Thats really clever!! really details too!

Gotta love us British LOL

[pbdad]

yeah, I remember my friends and I used to use this method to fill in the motorola logo opn the clips of our pagers in 92'!

I still use this method to fill the pictograms on my AR-15 lower.

[ubiquitous]

Beautiful results! That is one gorgous dial!

[madasboot]

Thanks Ross. Another powerful and useful tutorial.

Your dials are perfect (thank you so much for your offerings).

And since the brass plate thickness is very thin you opened the way (voluntarily or involuntarily :-)) for another great step on vintage dials...

Finally I got some spare time to dedicate myself to the projects and spent the whole afternoon with the dials you sent me.

I am preparing new 6152 projects (Angelus mvmt) for two good friends and slowly preparing the cases, dials and straps.

The wonderful thing about your dials is that you can insert a thick acetate roundlet between both disks and the effect of a resin filled dial is reached perfectly (without resin!!!).

Results are beautiful!

I wish I had a camera now to post some pics. You can even create the cracking effect with an x-acto blade and easily reproduce a dial like, for instance, Pape's Radiomir...

I will b in London on January and will take some stuff with me. Hopefully I will take the vintage straps for you and Simon if they are ready.

A merry Christmas for you all!

M.

[rmcsherry]

M,

Sounds great - the acetate is a great idea. I've been practicing with the resin filling as well - have a few interesting ideas, but no perfect results yet! The dial thickness is great for Angelus projects (less case work required!), but not 100% historically accurate - although spacing the top and bottom dials gives more depth like the vintage Panerai's anyway!

Merry Christmas, and hopefully see you in the New Year!

[Clint Eastwood]

M, i don't ear from you for some time, it's nice you are always here

i have try the acetate insert late summer, i use a "mica", a vintage plastic based on celuloid from the 50's, yelowish when aged, the effect is nice, and like you say close for the Pape's dial, probably close to the vintage construction.

the problem is to find a correct insert color; i will use a clear one for my next base cortebert.

And yes, this dial are realy beautiful and the thin thickness is perfect to adapt differents way to use it.

Thanks Ross. Another powerful and useful tutorial.

Your dials are perfect (thank you so much for your offerings).

And since the brass plate thickness is very thin you opened the way (voluntarily or involuntarily :-)) for another great step on vintage dials...

Finally I got some spare time to dedicate myself to the projects and spent the whole afternoon with the dials you sent me.

I am preparing new 6152 projects (Angelus mvmt) for two good friends and slowly preparing the cases, dials and straps.

The wonderful thing about your dials is that you can insert a thick acetate roundlet between both disks and the effect of a resin filled dial is reached perfectly (without resin!!!).

Results are beautiful!

I wish I had a camera now to post some pics. You can even create the cracking effect with an x-acto blade and easily reproduce a dial like, for instance, Pape's Radiomir...

I will b in London on January and will take some stuff with me. Hopefully I will take the vintage straps for you and Simon if they are ready.

A merry Christmas for you all!

M.

[VDBroucke]

nice creations..

but i mean the watches from 40ers start only with sandwich and not insert with lume...

the brass dial from sandwich have little engrave numerals and this with lume insert ( for intensive lume) but the overplate not

[madasboot]

M, i don't ear from you for some time, it's nice you are always here

... i will use a clear one for my next base cortebert.

Hi G!

I have been out for a while but always attentive to all the vintage achievements...

But thank you for your warm compliment! Its mutual...

R. dials are simply amazing and the use of a mica is perfect. Try to use an x-acto blade to cut it form the back to simulate the cracking effect. Its simply amazing!!!

And use a clear mica. The important thing is the vintageization of the lower plate and the final effect is something!!!

Joyeux Noel mon ami et je te congratule pour ton projets!

M.