Internet Horology Club 185
question regarding Hamilton RR dials: converting 3 foot to 4 foot

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https://ihc185.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/254108073/m/5983902687

September 09, 2015, 17:53
Michael Loggins
question regarding Hamilton RR dials: converting 3 foot to 4 foot
Is it possible to convert a 3 foot hamilton dial to a 4 foot hamilton dial? Thanks for your help.
September 09, 2015, 19:34
Richard M. Jones
Michael, as an experiment I tried exactly what you are asking about with a damaged 3 foot dial and some NOS dial feet. If you clip the feet off a 3 foot dial and carefully place the dial feet where they should be for a 4 footed dial it might work. However you may damage the dial rather easily and I used cement rather than solder as I was afraid of heat damaging the dial. I would say it can be done but is not generally worth it. I considered drilling new feet holes but that struck me as vandalism.One more point is that you really only need 2 feet to hold a dial if they are roughly equidistant. I feel that many members will have also tried some creative dial work much better than mine and frankly I would discourage you from trying my method. However I will send you some feet if you wish and I may have a 4 footed dial.


Deacon
September 09, 2015, 19:44
Michael Loggins
Richard, thank you for your advice and offer. I'm looking for a very particular Hamilton "old english" style double sunk 4 footed dial for a Hamilton 950P. There is one on ebay now but it is 3 footed unfortunately. If there was a good chance it would work I'd probably try to buy it but it doesn't sound like a winning solution.