It finally occurred to me to pair up my fanatstic Columbus Log Dial into something more appropriate ...

... and that something was a great Illinois "sawmill" case.

Get it? Log dial ... sawmill case?

Anyway, when I did that I noticed that three of the screws were plain polished steel, and not the original coppertone color of the regulator assembly and the rest of the screws. So, the red arrows show the screws that I "coppered".

Anybody want to guess how I did it?

BTW nice watch and the case is perfect for it.
Now let me know how you did it.
I can do it with vinegar and hand full of pennies.

My guess is you plated them. Isn't the first step to gold plating is to copper it first.

A Sharpie ?

A bit of copper sulfate solution?

Regards,
Bob

Photoshop?

does it involve a car battery and come copper wire?

During an email discussion with our esteemed colleague, the Hon. Wm. White, Esq., he mentioned that steel, during heat-tempering, exhibits most of the visible light spectrum. The word used was "straw-colored" at the lower heat range.

So I tried one of the plain-polished steel screws, and there are a few seconds where the metal is between gold and brown in color. A second or two too long and you're beyond brown into the rust-colored range. I polished up two other pitted screws, but left them over the heat a second too long (blue arrow).

Some day when I'm bored I'll polish the screws back out and re-heat them to the desired color.

L I L B!
Nice little piece of information there! You are becoming an alchemist, Eric! Thanks for posting this. What is your heat source? .... and gee, that log dial is so beautiful!!!

Eric

I should have known! Looks great and permanent too.

William