Purchased this awesome Kelek watch sometime ago. The movement is a Buren caliber 11 and the dial is just plain amazing to me. The only thing we are mssing is the hands. We have tried every supplier we can think of but to no avail. I've attached a picture I found online of a what the hands should look like. My watchmaker and I were discussing the possibility of custom making hands. Curious to hear some thoughts on this subject.

 

I experimented a bit with a fiber laser. Was too slow to really etch into the metal.

I did try and use my CNC to cut a clock hand. The results were mixed. The tooling was too large.

I have also considered metal etching. I use to make PC boards that way. There is a lot of stuff written on modlers forums, especially the shipbuiling ones.

It might be possible to use a fiber laser to burn away some etch resit. PC boards are done with photo etching. I did have some luck using foil transfer paper (used in book binding and ceramic decorations.) to surface a hand so as to change it's color.

We did a bit of etching with bismuth as a resit in the enameled jewly classes.

Also over did it purchasing hand assortments. Some I have had for nearly 30 years. More recently I got some chronograph assortments from places like oFrei. Most of them are too long.

Quartz hands tend to have small holes. They also need to be light. I have considered rebushing nice hands. Bushing hands is something like my leather strap projects. Always something more important to do first.

One laments the loss of the Ranfft database, as this was a quick check of hand diameter. I think some of this is in bestfit, which used OCR so the search functions miss a lot. Data sheets also work.

Bergeon sells a tool for gaugung hands. I have used a clock taper pin and some fingernail polish to scratch mark the pin.

Mostly I work with Lemania, Landeron, Venus and Valjoux. I have not seen a Buren chronograph movement before with the micro rotor. I did get some pin lever chronos, which are a class unto themselves. Eventually I will need to source a Lemania 1280 hour hand , or a complete handset.

Did find a nice Enicar handset for a Val-23/72 that was offered cheap by a first time seller. So one can get lost down the rabbit hole of collecting hands as with any other part ...

 

Wow! The Gruen uses the same hands (or close enough for my likes). Thanks @gatorcpa
I'm going to search for hands using Gruen and see if I can get lucky. Do you happen to know the case reference/model number

 

I have no useful thoughts on your handset problem, but that dial is amazing!

 

Hi Galaxytime

Very nice looking chronograph...with a cal 11 no less. Up to now I had not seen another Kelek chrono, besides the one I own. I am not sure how much the Heuer/Gruen set of hands will run you on the open market, or if you have already obtained them. I have coffee with a well-known watchmaker friend every week, and he was telling me about how he had to have another friend of his fabricate a set of hands for a very old AP he was servicing. This watchmaker routinely fabricates parts for a number of watchmakers and, according to James, duplicating hands is on the easier end of the spectrum of what he typically does. They did come out amazing. If you haven't come up with a solution yet, I will speak with him this weekend and see if he is willing to steer you towards his contemporary. Just let me know, and I will move this into a PM. James is generally buried with servicing vintage Airman watches for at least a year out, and I always ask before I give out his contact info.

Here's a couple of shots of my Kelek, which I had serviced about a year ago. It is a favorite. Of course it isn't in the same class as yours, as it has a VJ7733 instead of the Cal. 11 you have.

Wanna trade (smile).

Take care

jimmy