I took some hints you guys offered in other posts about cleaning my Pocket Watch Dials.

I took a dial that I just got with a bunch of old parts and......

OH MY GOODNESS!!!!

It turned out OUTSTANDING! of course, because I had no real hope for the dial, I didn't take before pictures, but I used the spray Comet kitchen cleaner mentioned in the post, and WOWOWOW did it ever make it WHITE WHITE.
It has a small hairline on it, but I just CAN'T find it. No kidding, I can't find it anywhere, now come on, it is there, and I should be able to feel it, or see it, but even with the loupe, I have never been able to find it again. It is the ONLY ONE I did, so I didn't get it mixed up with another one.

Anyway, Thanks a million for the tip, and I will use it again soon, and will post the BEFORE & AFTER pictures when I do them.

Great Tip!

Sheila, sounds great, How long did you leave it on the dial? How did you wash it off?

Phil.

Phillip,
That's the surprising part, I only held it in my hand and, ever so gently, sprayed and rubbed it onto the dial! I did this 2 times, and then just rinsed it over and over. I then placed it on a washcloth and patted it dry. With just that little bit of cleaning, it came out at least 5 times brighter and cleaner than when I started.

Remember this was just a "short try it out"

I didn't do the soaking thing, the dial was old and so bad that I thought it was already worthless, but it turns out, that it's a gem, and looks great.

I'm going to take pictures of some of my old cracked dials today, and clean them, and see what happens. I'm going to take before and after pictures this time, and use the same method, along with one that I will soak.

I must say, I was really impressed with this method, even when I only used the shortened method I played with. Immagine what following the soaking method would do!

Sheila your zeal is catching. Thank you for brightening an old guy's day. Just remember, only the dial in the cleaner . . . no watch attached to it.

David,
Trust me, I was being VERY brave when I did this much! I save parts that I get, that are in Terrible shape and won't even touch them for fear or harming them, so this was a huge step for me.

I learned long ago, I'm better at buying and showing my finds, than ever think of cleaning or fixing them. I will leave that to the professional watchman.

I still have a few really nasy dials, and at this point I'm curious to see if it works as well on different dials, as it did on the one I already cleaned.

I didn't mention that the day after I did this one, I cleaned a junk dial that came in a pack of parts, that's METAL and I think is PAINTED, and it came out 100% better than it was. It's still not much, but I could see that some of the dial was already missing, and in terrible shape.

I couldn't even see the dial until I washed it a little, and even then I knew that it was very damaged, and that the dial would most likely dissapear when I cleaned it.

It's not much, but it did clean it, and didn't remove the paint either! I will have to post that one too, so someone can tell me if it's painted or what it is.

Trust me, I will NEVER clean a watch, I'll research it, buy it, photo it, and the like, but I will leave the mechanics to the Pro's.