Tips on Straighening a Rotated Dial

[watch_hor]

I have a watch that has a dial that appears to be rotated about 2 to 3 degrees from top dead center (I know it doesn't seem like a lot but I'm a stickler). I'm just wondering if its fairly easy to go in and correct this or is there a high risk of my watch discombobulating? Its a 3 hand watch with a Miyota movement. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

[HamiltonElectric]

Normally dials are held firmly in place by 'feet' -- 2 or rarely 3 very small metal posts soldered to the back of the dial and which fit into holes in the movement, and are restrained with either a screw or a locking lever for each mounting point. Consequently the dial cannot be rotated. If yours is not correctly aligned it must have been out of position when the markings were printed. You would have to check with the manufacturer.

[Archer]

I have a watch that has a dial that appears to be rotated about 2 to 3 degrees from top dead center (I know it doesn't seem like a lot but I'm a stickler). I'm just wondering if its fairly easy to go in and correct this or is there a high risk of my watch discombobulating? Its a 3 hand watch with a Miyota movement. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

The first thing you need to determine if it's just the dial that's rotated, or the whole movement in the case. I have come across watches where someone was sloppy when tightening down the clamps to hold the movement in place, and the movement had been shifted slightly. I received the watches when the stems failed from bending due to the misalignment.....so that needs to be checked first.

If the dial is misaligned, it can be fixed in most cases.

I just straightened two dials on watches brought to me by a client. One on an ETA 6497 clone, and the other on a pilot watch with a Miyota movement. The dial feet have been bent out of their proper position, which is why the dial seems rotated. It's also possible that they could have broken off, but that's not as common as them being bent out of position. I guess it's also possible that, depending on the watch, the dial could be held on with dial dots, but I usually only see this on very cheap watches thankfully.

The dial feet can be bent back straight, and this will align your dial for you in most cases. Depending on the watch and how much it's bent and how delicate the dial is, I take the hands and dial off, and straighten the dial feet with a pair of #8 tweezers (also good for straightening bent pivots), and then mount the dial and hands again. In some cases, you can actually straighten the dial as it sits on the movement by turning it - care must be used or you could shear the dial feet off, so this is not something I would recommend you do if you have no experience with this sort of thing. This is easier if there is a sub-dial hole to judge how far out the dial is, and when you have turned it back straight.

So here is an example - this first photo shows the dial as I received it. I added some lines to help you see how misaligned it actually was - note that I might have the camera at a bit of an angle, so this may make it look different than in real life in these photos. The point where the lug intersects the case is my reference, and using this and looking at the 5, 7, 11, and 1 o-clock markers you can see the dial is rotated counter-clockwise:



Here is the watch after I straightened the dial, and you can see the points line up much better now:



Hope this helps.

Cheers, Al

[pithy]

. . . . . . . The dial feet have been bent out of their proper position, which is why the dial seems rotated. . . . . . .

I see this on many vintage and older watches, particularly where the dial feet are perhaps a little undersized (diameter) to aid in fitting(?). On the thicker movements where the screws are distanced further from the dial, the feet become bowed and then when they are "straigtened" without being "uprighted", the offset begins.

p

[watch_hor]

The first thing you need to determine if it's just the dial that's rotated, or the whole movement in the case. I have come across watches where someone was sloppy when tightening down the clamps to hold the movement in place, and the movement had been shifted slightly. I received the watches when the stems failed from bending due to the misalignment.....so that needs to be checked first.

If the dial is misaligned, it can be fixed in most cases.

I just straightened two dials on watches brought to me by a client. One on an ETA 6497 clone, and the other on a pilot watch with a Miyota movement. The dial feet have been bent out of their proper position, which is why the dial seems rotated. It's also possible that they could have broken off, but that's not as common as them being bent out of position. I guess it's also possible that, depending on the watch, the dial could be held on with dial dots, but I usually only see this on very cheap watches thankfully.

The dial feet can be bent back straight, and this will align your dial for you in most cases. Depending on the watch and how much it's bent and how delicate the dial is, I take the hands and dial off, and straighten the dial feet with a pair of #8 tweezers (also good for straightening bent pivots), and then mount the dial and hands again. In some cases, you can actually straighten the dial as it sits on the movement by turning it - care must be used or you could shear the dial feet off, so this is not something I would recommend you do if you have no experience with this sort of thing. This is easier if there is a sub-dial hole to judge how far out the dial is, and when you have turned it back straight.

So here is an example - this first photo shows the dial as I received it. I added some lines to help you see how misaligned it actually was - note that I might have the camera at a bit of an angle, so this may make it look different than in real life in these photos. The point where the lug intersects the case is my reference, and using this and looking at the 5, 7, 11, and 1 o-clock markers you can see the dial is rotated counter-clockwise:



Here is the watch after I straightened the dial, and you can see the points line up much better now:



Hope this helps.

Cheers, Al

Awesome explanations by all, very much appreciate the advice. @Archer, thanks for the pics, great reference. I am going to take a shot of courage and open er up. Its a brand new watch so it will be a disaster if I manage to break the thing. The 2 deg offset just bugs the crap out of me and was a total buzz kill to an otherwise great piece.

[watch_hor]

Thanks all. After getting enough courage up to open up a new watch, i saw that there was a little bit of rotational play after removing a plastic retainer piece. I rotated the dial/movement assembly almost 2deg and just started to put a little pressure on the winding stem. The end result is a much improved dial orientation albeit still slightly off. Anyway thanks all for putting some confidence in me for what turned out to be a simple diy fix.