Doing a custom build, opinions sought

[sneed12]

I'm getting married this September, and I've decided to do watches for each of the groomsmen.

I've been doing a lot of digging. I want GMT automatics, not too expensive since I'm going to be tearing them apart. At first I was leaning towards a21j Explorer reps, but I decided that against a custom dial, the standard Rolex meatball-style hands wouldn't look all that great. Plus, I'm planning on doing the dials in white so I wanted black hands.

I found this guy:

http://www.perpetual-watch.com/

in China who builds his own line of watches under the Perpetual brand name. They seemed nice, and after some email back-and-forth he agreed to ship me seven of his GMT model, complete but unassembled.

He says the movement is GMT - SH RK4D which I assume is a Shanghai B of some sort; the rotor looks exactly like an ETA 2824/2836 rotor and I'm hoping the dial diameter is the same. I plan to use blank ETA 28xx dials from Ofrei (they're 4 bucks) and I hope the date window will match up.

I've put together some ideas for the custom dial, here's what I've got so far:

EDIT: The aliasing in the image is from converting to jpg, I've got it in vector graphics form as well.

Not sure if I'm going to include the PERPETUAL on the dial or not, in the end. I plan to leave the logo on the crown and buckle. Trying to come up with the best way to print the logo in high quality but not too expensive. We have a bunch of color laser printers at the office, so I'm basically just playing with their different settings at this point.

I'm also considering leaving the dial alone, and using a decal or something to put the additional text on--I like the texture and the markers a lot, surprisingly.

Opinions sought:

Custom dials or no? One advantage of the custom dials is that I can (was planning to) do a little lume. I don't think the hands on this watch are lumed, but they look like they would accept lume in the slot in the middle.

Include PERPETUAL text on the dial?

Do an accent color on the tip of the GMT hand? I was thinking painting just the arrow red or light blue might be nice looking, and would be really easy. Too much color?

Any other opinions/advice welcomed.

[baglc1]

your name and future wifes name instead of the perpetual

[sneed12]

The Korean character in blue is my name. You think the future wife's name should go on there? I sort of felt like there was enough text as it is...

[TeeJay]

Awesome project, and congratulations on the upcoming wedding

I agree with the comment to have just your name and your wife's name instead of Perpetual, but I would also suggest removing all the lower text, as the watch and the event will be memorable enough that the recipient will not need an additional reminder of who they are, or what they did I'd suggest having the entire second hand, and the triangle of the GMT hand matching the blue of the Korean character

[Member X]

I was going to order something from Perpetual but the guy was a complete [censored] so I decided not to lol

Looks good though - I agree that you should have both parties' names on the dial!

[OSRep]

I'm getting married this September, and I've decided to do watches for each of the groomsmen.

Opinions sought:

Custom dials or no? One advantage of the custom dials is that I can (was planning to) do a little lume. I don't think the hands on this watch are lumed, but they look like they would accept lume in the slot in the middle.

Include PERPETUAL text on the dial?

Do an accent color on the tip of the GMT hand? I was thinking painting just the arrow red or light blue might be nice looking, and would be really easy. Too much color?

Any other opinions/advice welcomed.

Congratulations on the big day - hope it goes well. This is a very cool project too, great idea.

If youre going to do it then you may as well do custom dials, get them lumed, (applying blue on the GMT hand tip is a good idea - or match it to the colour you plan to do the text in).

You dont want too much text on the dial either - so leave out that "timothy won, best man" etc etc.......You should definitely have your future wifes name up there in Korean character though.....

[sneed12]

Congratulations on the big day - hope it goes well. This is a very cool project too, great idea.

Thanks

You dont want too much text on the dial either - so leave out that "timothy won, best man" etc etc.......You should definitely have your future wifes name up there in Korean character though.....

I'm leaning towards just the names at this point. I really want something personal on the dial.

And my future wife is a white anglo Texan, so her name doesn't lend itself to Korean...

[sneed12]

I just tried drawing railroad track style indices and they're a pain in the ass to get to look right. With most of the text removed it might be worth it to add the other numbers to the dial... I dunno. Gonna take a look around the interwebs and see what all is out there.

Here is a second draft, I guess you'd call it:

[TeeJay]

And my future wife is a white anglo Texan, so her name doesn't lend itself to Korean...

Had you considered using the initials of her first and last names to make a little 'character', kind of like the JRR Tolkien 'character'?

I still think best to lose the personalization on the dial, maybe have the backs engraved instead, but that's just my .2c

[sneed12]

Had you considered using the initials of her first and last names to make a little 'character', kind of like the JRR Tolkien 'character'?

Her initials are RB, so if anyone wants to do that go for it. I'm not that clever or graphically talented

I think I've basically settled on this:

I might make the text a bit bigger. I had a Seamaster PO rep on yesterday, and I'm wearing a Sub today, and both of those have 5 lines of text on the dial + the logo. I think my worry of having too much clutter on there is a bit unfounded