February 27, 2026
This skeletonized Unitas 6498 came out a vintage 1970s Arnex brand pocket watch. It is going into a wristwatch with a custom Dial. This page is mainly about the process of making the dial…
Using the hand hole in the middle as a starting point, a compass is used to scribe a couple circles around the perimeter. The outer one will be an indent line, and the inner, the cutout line…
… next step is to glue the base dial onto a block so that it can be worked on using the lathe.
Before the lathe work, I use the original track to freehand scribe the new track around the outside most part of the future dial.
New ring dial unglued from the lathe block with the first pass of the graver over the minute track.
A little smoothing of the indent line, holes scribed for hour markers, and the sanding started…
Second/third pass over the minute track with the graver, and hour holes drilled.
Hour and minute markers filled in with black lacquer… will let it dry until tomorrow…
February 28, 2026
Horrible luck with the lacquer not sticking to the brass! The engraving is just to shallow. If I try to make the minutes track any deeper, it will also turn out wider, and that is something I don’t want – I want them thinner than the tip of the minutes hand…
So a change of plans… The lacquer is dissolved off the dial with acetone, for a new blank slate.
I decide to drill the hour holes all the way through the dial, and to slightly widen the minutes track on the five minute marks…
After oxidizing the entire ring dial black with selenic acid, the surface oxidation gets sanded off the top, leaving only the tracks, the indent line and the hour marker hole bevels a nice matt black.
In order to add some luster and to match the hand set a bit better, I end the day by back filling the hour marker holes with a mixture of UV cure resin mixed with 200 grit charcoal dust… yes, I sanded part of an artist’s charcoal pencil to make my own dust…
