Advice on remedies for a stained Speedmaster Pro dial

I’ll be darned. Definitely the same watch. I guess it was probably returned a couple of times, because by the time it got to me it was about 40% cheaper than the next cheapest Speedy they had in stock. As I was looking for a “zero F’s given” watch at the time, it fit the bill. However, after almost a year I have unfortunately started to give a F.

Well, probably not 40% below private market as Crown & Caliber tends to be at the upper end of the used dealer market in terms of pricing (due to service record, warranty, etc.). That said, I definitely have several hundred dollars to work with before I'm underwater. Doing some investigation into what a replacement dial sell for now to see if the math can work out.

FYI - here is what the dial looks like under normal light where I am not trying to see the "stain"




And here is one next to my other, "perfect" Speedy which I got brand new as a gift and still baby.

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone for there help. Wanted to post a quick update. I did end up sourcing a replacement tritium dial. It is in good, but not perfect condition. Definitely stain free though, and with very, very similar coloration to the lume of the original. I've dropped it off with a local watchmaker to do the dial swap. I located the watchmaker through the various review sites (Yelp, Google, etc.), and picked him because he had a good number of reviews by people having actual mechanical watches services (all the other places just had a million battery change reviews). The watchmaker was wearing a Railmaster when I dropped the watch and dial off, so hopefully that is a good omen 😀 Fingers crossed all goes smoothly. He did warn me about potential loss of lume from the hands during the swap, and I directed him not to replace the hands even if they get a new nick or two. Hope that was the right call.

Here a quick picture of the watch and dial at dropoff:

Hi all,

I received my watch back from the watchmaker, and I'm happy to report the dial transplant was a success. The hands incurred no new loss of paint/lume, and nothing mechanical seems to have been effected (still keeping good time, all chrono functions working, etc.). The new dial looks great. Awesome not to see that stain anymore, and the lume looks identical to the original dial. Now with the dial out of the watch I can confirm that it is some kind of oil, and can clearly see that it is in the shape of a finger print. Below are pictures of the watch with the transplanted dial (discolorations are just reflection off my iPhone), and the original dial. Now that the watch is safely back together with a good, correct dial I will experiment with cleaning the original and will keep the forum posted in case the info is useful for anyone else. I think my first go will be to simply apply some diluted Dawn with a cotton ball and let it sit before flushing it with distilled water and air drying. We'll see...

Hi all

Final update to this thread, just in case anyone else encounters the same kind of "oil on the dial" issue I did with my Speedy. Today, with the replacement dial safely transplanted into my watch, I attempted to clean the original dial. In my opinion the operation was a success. After cleaning, I can barely see the original stain. I’m sure with a more aggressive method/solvent I could remove the last 5% or so of the oil, but I think I’m good for now.

Here is the before shot:



Here’s what I did:

I started with two containers: one containing water mixed with a bit of Dawn, and one containing clean, filtered water. I put on some blue nitrile gloves, and grabbed a few Qtips. The dial went into the water container with the Dawn for about 30 seconds. Next, I agitated the stain gently with the Qtip for about 5 seconds. Then I dipped the dial in the clean water. The stain was diminished, but still visible, so I repeated the process three times until I was happy with the results. Finally, I dried the dial with my wife’s hairdryer set to cool.

Here’s my set up:



And the results:



Whether any long-term damage has been done is yet to be seen, but so far looks good! Will post another update if things go downhill. Until then, I now have a decent spare tritium dial 😀