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Radiomir Vintage 3646


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Most of you will have seen the vintage 3646 that I have been working on and I thought I would share the latest experiment with you. The dial is again a temporary one but I have been trying to find a way to fill the dial numbers with a clear resin. I am pleased to say my experiments have been an outstanding success.The markers are filled with a tinted resin just like the gens. I have not been able to re-produce the cracks yet but have managed to get some variation of colour (although the flash pics don't really show it very well). Some of them are yellow and other are more orange and some sort of blotchy!! This colour is in the resin and there is lume underneath which does glow well as the resin is transparent. The hands were the black painted ones so I rubbed of the paint with an abrasive to reveal the brass then soaked the hands in some vinegar for a while to give some oxidation and patina to them.

I have also spent a lot of time refining the crystal as I was not happy with the original dome shape - now it is about as good as it could possibly be. Just added a new daylight photo which shows the colours better.

Enjoy the pics!!

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I like it. Is there a good article somewhere about the construction of the vintage gen dials?

The dial front basically formed the lid of a container of Radiomir powder which is why the numbers were filled with resin to seal them. Originally they would have been transparent but obviously with age (over 60 years old) the resin yellows and cracks which is why they look the way they do now. Sunlight exposure would also have an effect which is why some gens are not as yellow/orange as others if they have been stored out of light. Here are some pics of a gen dial and you can clearly see that the resin fills the markers level with the dial, although this dial has no cracking of the resin- I think mine looks very similar.

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