Has anyone else had this problem?

I have a nice South Bend 212. It was in an open faced watch case. I purchased a very nice hunters case and had Leon Harris restore the case.

The watch had a very bad dial on it. I looked for a replacement dial but was unable to find an original. I settled on a reproduction montgomery as a temorary measure.

When I installed the watch into the hunters case and put the crystal bezel back on, the dial popped the crystal out of the bezel. It appears that the reproduction dial is too thick to use on the hunter case.

I did check to see if I had installed the movement correctly. It appears that it fits down into the case properly.

Any ideas? Have others had this problem?

Yes I know some of the repro dials were thicker which made for the bezels not to fit tight like they should. I am sure many others will tell you the same thing.

Yep, I experienced the same thing with a Swiss reproduction dial on a 992B a couple years back. It was too thick to screw the bezel all the way closed.

Chris had to turn the bezel down a bit in order for it to screw down over the dial.

Regards! Mark

Are you sure the dial is causing the probem? Hunter crystals come in several sizes from an 8 which is nearly flat to others that have more clearance to the center post. If the dial is the problem usually you cant get the bezel to snap on. Popping of the crystal would indicate contact with the center post in my experience........Keith

c. Keith: You might be right. The bezel will snap on without the crystal. When I put the crystal back in, it pops out again when I put the bezel on the case.

I, too have run into the same problem with some of the older repro dials I got from S. LaRose.They're a few thousandths too thick, and it's just enough to interfere with the bezel.I imagine you could sand off the extra on the back of the dial, but it would be hard to get aroud the feet..

Supposedly, new repro dials are being made thinner.Does anyone know of a source for them?I'd rather have a chipped or hairlined original, but lots of times a repro is the only thing you can get!

Theodore: you raise a good point. Sanding off the back sounds good but you would also have to replace the feet. Sanding off the back and leaving the feet untouched wouldn't help because the feet would not allow the dial to sit down any further on the movement.

I thought about trimming or beveling the edge of the dial. But, I am not sure if that would help either.

Ernie, I wonder if you could sand it and then shorten the feet..You could maybe grind away the area around the base of the feet with a tiny carbide burr in a Dremel tool.Might work...Ted.

Another thought, you could use a depth mic or caliper to set the foot length the same as the original.As long as they are the same, the dial would bottom out on the pillar plate.