manodeoro Posted November 16, 2020 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2020 On 11/15/2020 at 1:42 PM, cornerstone said: The lume bit looks challenging. Do you know how they apply it in production? Feels like it needs some kind of mask in applying it? (I have no clue, just speculating). No the faintest idea on how they applied in production ... sorry I do use a silk needle ... and a magnifying glass 😁 This evenig I've made a print-test of the Blacklung I have re-designed for NH35 a few days ago Here's a pic showing how it will look through a Seiko rehaut As there's no paint on the dial plate, the thin black circle around the Blacklung logo simulate where the yellow paint will go ... May I say that I'm pretty happy with the result ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanuq Posted November 16, 2020 Report Share Posted November 16, 2020 Very nice. The 3 tick marks beside the date window finish it off nicely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted November 23, 2020 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2020 Last week I have prepared some orange sprayed dial plates for Doxas ... no more "orange peel" and glossy enough IMHO ... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted December 11, 2020 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2020 Some news about my "now glossy" Doxa dials in progress ... I have 5 dials on my bench those days ... 3 gens specs for ETA movements and 2 for NH35 The dials for ETA are still waiting for varnish finsih but here are the 2 for NH35 ... Sorry for the bad pics ... I'll make better shoots when finished SUB 300 T Professional "no logo" ... waiting for lume work SUB 300 T "Blacklung" ... I still have to print the yellow dot and put the "Blacklung" logo on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy333 Posted December 25, 2020 Report Share Posted December 25, 2020 I think if you could work out a way to add a wee bit of thickness (3d appearance) to the print, that would push the dials over the top. But nice work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted February 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2021 Today I'll post some news about those Doxa dials ... I have just finished 2 dials and handsets that will be shipped tomorrow to a friend ... I had already worked on a "sharkhunter" dial but the future owner was hesitating between that one and a "conquistador" ... So, after some emails back and forth, we decided to make something in the beteween ... So I'm happy to present you the "SHARQUISTADOR" - Black "sharkhunter" dial - "sharkhunter" handset - "conquistador" print That dial is for a Miyota 8215 so I've had to slightly modify the design to make it fit the dial size and the date window The handset is a white Soxa one for Miyota movements that I have partly painted in matte black to make it look as close as possible to an original "sharkhunter" handset The future owner wanted all that look "like it had been lost in deep water for years" ... I've made my best to match that description and we are both pretty happy with the final result ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted February 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2021 The second one is a Blacklung dial with a custom handset ... Making that custom handset proved to be MUCH more difficult than I thought at first ... I designed the hands using Blacklung close-up pics, send that to my maker and waited for some weeks ... Just before New Years Eve the handsets arrived in my mail box and I was not that happy ... The hands were nicely cut but the finish was so so and none of the tubes really fitted to the movement So I decicde to rework everything : - remove the lume -nsqueeze the tubes on hours and minutes hands -nbroach the tube on the seconds hand - redo theblack varnish finish It took me hours but at the end I achieved ti get something I liked. So I just had to lume everything ... off-white lume with low-green glow ... Then I proceeded to the final mounting on a an ETA 2824-2 movement ... now it's just ready to ship ... BTW ... I have almost finished another Balcklung dial and handset, same design but made for a Seiko NH35 movement ... I just have to lume evrything so I'll post the result next week if everything goes well ... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted March 3, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2021 Hi guys … some really good news today ... Members who check that thread from time to time have already read about my « Irish Star » Doxa project I posted here October 2000. The original Irish Star dial was made for Dr Pete Millar and was quite nice but, IMHO, it looked too much"modern style". So I decided to redo it, "vintage style" and with a real Irish shamroc, not a 4 leaves clover. Since then I’ve had too much work at the office and I postponed that project. But sometimes things catch up with you … Mid-September I received a PM from the Doxa guy himself … Dr Pete McClean Millar. For those who didn’t heard about him, Pete Millar has writen books about the Doxa subs, collaborated with the Company and is a(the!) specialist about those divers. You can check his website here http://www.doxa300t.com/ , his books about Doxas here http://www.thedoxabook.com/ an his last book about the Aquastar here http://www.adiveintotime.com/ ... I was really honored to read what Dr Millar wrote about the work I had already done on those Doxa dials, saying I had progressed to almost perfection … though I’m still far from it … We chated about Doxas, divers, dial-making, Oil & Gas industry, etc … and decided that the Irish Star project had to exist « in real ». First thing I did was to prepare a blank ETA dial plate to the exact dimensions needed to fit in the Doxa Sub 1200T case were it will be … no pics of that step as it’s standard work … The next step was to select the perfect « Irish » green I would apply on the blank plate. We agreed that « Mickey Finn’s Irsih Green Apple » was nice So I painted the dial using the same green, then I applied 2 coats of glossy lacquer While the final glossy coat was drying, I did a print test on a blank copper ETA dial, just to check that the position of the date window was good enough Everything looked OK … both for me and Pete, so I went to the print process and got that result Here we were really close to the end … But there was still the lume work to do and though the last ones I had done were nice they were not good enough … that one had to be as « close to perfect » as I could do… I wanted to achieve sharp angles on the white rectangles in daylight and on the lume in darkness … So I searched for a new method to apply the lume I searched and finally found the way to proceed … simple and easy, no expensive tools, just steady hands and some imagination … And today I’m glad to show you the result … The « Irish Star » is alive and glows in the dark … 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanuq Posted March 3, 2021 Report Share Posted March 3, 2021 That’s magnificent work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted March 11, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2021 Irish Star shipped 02/03, received 08/03 and cased 09/03 ... a smoothly runnig operation Yesterday evening my friend Dr Peter Millar sent me some pics ... everything's ready for Saint Patrick's day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanuq Posted March 11, 2021 Report Share Posted March 11, 2021 What a magnificent result! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docdoowop Posted March 12, 2021 Report Share Posted March 12, 2021 yes, that Irish dial is good. And the lume looks good too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted March 12, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2021 yes, that Irish dial is good. And the lume looks good too What a magnificent result!Thanks I didn't had the handset while luming the dial so there's a slight difference ... But Peter said me it's soooo slight that not really noticeable ...I'll post some pics of a lumed BlackLung dial next week's ... I thought I could do that sooner but I've found a better way to make the yellow dot so I've decided to remove everything and start from a blank dial plate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted May 25, 2021 Author Report Share Posted May 25, 2021 Finished some more Doxa dials last week ... BLACKLUNG DIAL and HANDSET ... for NH35 SUB 300 T "NO LOGO" DIAL SUB 300 T "IRISHSTAR" DIAL I'm still waiting to hear back about the SUB 200 CORALLINE print test ... As soon I'll get a "GO" I'll resize the dial down to 17.5mm and proceed to lume work 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornerstone Posted May 26, 2021 Report Share Posted May 26, 2021 Looking really good!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanuq Posted May 26, 2021 Report Share Posted May 26, 2021 Boy you solved that problem with the lume, it looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted June 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2021 Some weeks of friend of a friend sent me a pic of a rarely seen *doxa sUB 300 T dial ... something you'll certainly never se in real He asked my if I could print the same dial with some customisation. He is a former U.S. Navy Commander and his initials are H.G. ... so I worked on the design and made the print test below. The future owner said he wanted a dial to be more reddish than the "standard SUB 300 orange" So I sent him a color chart and made some color tests so that he could choose the color he wanted and here we are ... still orange but more close to red ... and ready for lumework 🙂 the orange/yellow dial with "la spirotechnique" logo on the background is one I'm making for my son Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanuq Posted June 27, 2021 Report Share Posted June 27, 2021 Every time I look at this thread you take it up another notch. I love that Spirotechnique dial!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted June 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2021 Every time I look at this thread you take it up another notch. I love that Spirotechnique dial!!!Back to the origins ...1946 - Air Liquide founded "La Spirotechnique" to sell the "Scaphandre Cousteau-Gagnan", aka C45, aka Aqua-Lung ...1952 - René Bussoz, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan founded U.S Divers Company ...1957 - Bussoz sold U.S. Divers Co. to La Spirotechnique / Aqualung International216 - Air Liquide sold Aqualung International to Montagu Private Equity ...Next ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nanuq Posted June 27, 2021 Report Share Posted June 27, 2021 "Scaphandre Cousteau-Gagnan" a very early dive reference which led to the case backs on today’s Dan Henry compressor cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted June 28, 2021 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetho Posted January 24, 2022 Report Share Posted January 24, 2022 Hi guys, hi Manodeoro, is there any news about this awesome thread? I just discovered it and I am following it with interest Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manodeoro Posted April 20, 2022 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2022 Hi folks ... it's been almost months since I haven't posted here ...I've had to put dialmaking and watchmaking aside and stay off from the forums for a while because I moved to a new house with my new GF and kids ... reconstructing a new family takes a lot of time.Then, early 2022, I had to take care of 2 old guys I love ... really close family ...One is almost OK now, though his brain is still so so ...The other one leaved our good hearth last week ... not in a starship I mean, he died after hard weeks of intensive care at the hospital ...Sometimes life is shitty and old age is not a bed of roses ...Now I start again working on watches and it proves to be helpful to avoid thinking about bad things ... so let's put sadness aside ... I'm happy to be back here ...So during the past week I 've been making some Doxa dials ... precision work was helpfull to sothe the mind ...Aqualungs ... one standard early Doxa and two from the Synchron era ...Blacklungs too ... not that much cause they require specific dial plates (I'm waiting for some more) ...Divingstars ... All Synchron era ... two standards and one "Poseidon" with that nice logoAnd two Sharkhunters ... those are not as popular than the others but they are really nice too ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornerstone Posted April 20, 2022 Report Share Posted April 20, 2022 9 hours ago, manodeoro said: Hi folks ... it's been almost months since I haven't posted here ... I've had to put dialmaking and watchmaking aside and stay off from the forums for a while because I moved to a new house with my new GF and kids ... reconstructing a new family takes a lot of time. Then, early 2022, I had to take care of 2 old guys I love ... really close family ... One is almost OK now, though his brain is still so so ... The other one leaved our good hearth last week ... not in a starship I mean, he died after hard weeks of intensive care at the hospital ... Sometimes life is shitty and old age is not a bed of roses ... Now I start again working on watches and it proves to be helpful to avoid thinking about bad things ... so let's put sadness aside ... I'm happy to be back here ... So during the past week I 've been making some Doxa dials ... precision work was helpfull to sothe the mind ... Aqualungs ... one standard early Doxa and two from the Synchron era ... Blacklungs too ... not that much cause they require specific dial plates (I'm waiting for some more) ... Divingstars ... All Synchron era ... two standards and one "Poseidon" with that nice logo And two Sharkhunters ... those are not as popular than the others but they are really nice too ... Sorry to hear about your sadness. Inspiring dial work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asf Posted April 20, 2022 Report Share Posted April 20, 2022 Sorry for your loss, hopefully dial making takes you mind off things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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