I was going to remove the dial from this movement to send out to restore and low and behold I found there were no screws in the side of the movement. This is new for me as I have removed dials from several Illinois watches before. Can anyone tell me how the dial is removed? I belive this is one of the "thin" models which this would be my first.

And you can see why I would like to get the dial refinished....

I personally would leave it. It matches the watch well.

Look for a lip where it is rolled over the pillar plate. It should snap off.

I agree with Aaron. It is most likly a snap on dial. Try giving the dial a good rubbing with rodoco and see how well it will clean up before you send it off. You might like the results.

I would like to thank the both of you for your responses. I have never heard of "rodoco". Is tthat its trade name? Where do I find it?
Thanks again,
Steve

It does snap on/off. No Dial feet.

This shows where you would "pry" or gently push on the dial to pop it off. I use a piece of pegwood and work around the movement until the dial "pops" off.

Frank,
Thanks so much. I will give it a try. Does it snap back in then?
Steve

Yep. Snapped back on. It is a fairly tight fit.

Steve,
I misspelled the word. The correct spelling is rodico. Anyway here is a link to an eBay auction for the stuff.

Larry,
Thanks so much for the info. I ordered a stick a few minutes ago. I will go down that road first.
Thanks again,
Steve

Speaking of Rodico, I have a little recipe that I picked up from another watchmaker. I mix the Rodico with "Sticky Tack". The "Sticky Tack" is always called that and it's always blue. I mix it with the Rodico about 5 parts Rodico to one part Sticky Tack. It really improves the lifting/cleaning power of the putty and I always work with the Rodico/Sticky Tack mixture. I first found Sticky Tack in a hardware store but it's also easy to find on the web.

I have a slightly different view on the redialing issue than Lindell. As Lindell says "More often than not a repainted dial will fall short of expectations", and more often than not this is true especially if you have high expectations.

I have many dials redone and I think redialing is usually appropriate for "trashed" dials. But for example, this 12s Illinois dial in this thread is a hard one to refinish correctly. At the present time it's in fair shape and I would say still presentable. Unless you have a dial company that you know can do a good job on this particular type of dial I would bet that you would probably be disappointed if the reason you want it redialed is because you want it to look "perfect". A lot of watch collectors are perfectionists and most redials fall short of perfection in some way.

There are many collectors who will collect only the examples that look (and hopefully are) all original. As Lindell pointed out he stays away from watches with redone dials. That's a very good policy when you're trying to collect "quality" watches. And you can't go wrong if collect quality.

For example, here is South Bend dial of a very similar style that was redone. As far as redials go this one turned out pretty good. But, if you're a collector, you can tell it was redone almost instantly and there are some very subtle mistakes and shortcomings if you know where to look.