I am seeking opinions of others on how they would deal with this dial repair issue if this were a watch in their collection. A past bungler turned a case screw in too far and the tip of the screw punched into the back of the snap-fit enamel dial. It broke the enamel on the back side (no big deal) but also dimpled the copper base and pushed out some flakes of enamel on the front. They preserved the pieces in place with clear glue, but you can see the tented flakes of enamel rising above the surface of the dial. My quandary is whether to just accept it as it is or attempt a repair to make the dial surface flat again.

My approach would be to carefully remove and preserve the 4 or 5 largest pieces. I believe a small dental burr could reduce the copper dimple so that the removed flakes could be replaced, flush with the original surface of the dial. Remaining gaps would be filled with dial wax. Their is a risk of possibly causing a little more damage or not being able to replace all the pieces. If you have seen repaired dials before you know that the wax can blend in very well, although minute marks and numbers cannot be replaced.

Which would you prefer if this were yours? A damaged dial with pieces sticking up as you see it here, or a flat dial with dial wax filling a few gaps?

Jerry,

Just my opinion. I would attempt the fix.. It would probably look better than it does now..If I were to bungle it all together, it could be soft enameled by that dial guy in Australia. He is very good at matching and at a reasonable price....Depends I guess on how much you "Like" the watch....Hairlines and small chips to the outer edge do not bother me, but when they get in to the chapter ring it does..

My two cents worth;
I find that trying to reglue broken pieces almost always doesn`t work well. If it is not a real large chunk I would just fill with soft enamel.
I would advise against doing anything to the metal backing as long as it fits properly. Any stress on the back can cause a disaster!

P.S. On a second look, I think I would most likely leave it as is. The risk far outweighs the gain.

Thanks for sharing your viewpoints so far. I am not going to rush into anything, and I am going to play with some trashed dials to see how enamel flakes handle and how copper grinds.

I have often wondered about dental enamel, but I am told they do not make it white enough for dials. Apparently no one's teeth are really as white as a watch dial.

Someone mentioned doing the repair with Dial wax and then repainting the chapter ring and number. Can anyone suggest what to use for ink or paint that will aly down well on dial wax? Nothing I have tried has worked Art

Art,
Have you tried India ink? I bought some to try but haven`t gotten around to it yet.
As far as ink goes, if India won`t do it, I don`t think any will.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try India ink. Is india ink any different than any other water based fountain pen ink? Has anyone any successful experience? We need something that "wets" to the wax of the repair, and does not ball up.

The main advantage of India ink is the density of the black. Besides the ink beading up on the wax, another difficulty (or maybe not) is that the pen might score the surface of the wax. Acttually, I am thinking that if one were to scratch the intended lines in the wax surface, or make shallow hollows for letters or numbers, the ink would then cling to the lines and hollows. I have not tried this yet, but it is worth a few experiments.

If nothing will adhere to the wax here`s an idea from way out in left field.
Once I needed to paint letters on a piece of metal and didn`t have the proper color paint on hand. I mixed water colors with elmer`s glue and water. Worked pretty well at least for my purpose. So maybe a little elmers mixed with the ink would make it stickier. You would have to experiment with it before messing up a dial though.
Just an idea if nothing else works!



P.S. Think it would be better to use a very small brush rather than a pen.