I decided to take the plunge and do it myself I bought an insert replacement off of eBay it came from France it was over €420. It’s shaped perfectly the font is very nice the letters pop out because there’s a clear layer on top of them and they look a little 3-D so it was a good base for what I wanted to do.
I decided to use custom fishing rod high-build epoxy, From my research it would be clear hard tough and most importantly not too brittle like Bakelite.
first thing I did was lay it on there to see how it sat, and it looked great. I bought a set of fine tipped brushes and was ready to attempt the application!
This is the first time for me to attempt anything like this, but it looked like it should work so it was too tempting, had to do it!
So I went ahead and mix equal parts of the epoxy and mix them very well for at least a minute, folding mostly to keep the bubbles down. I tested applying it on my big silicone mat that I was using. This brand didn’t have many bubbles and I tapped the bottle cap a little bit and got the few that were in there out before I applied the epoxy on top of the insert.
I took these pictures right after I applied the epoxy and right at the beginning of the curing process. One day in and curing is going very well and I have to say I’m happy with the results so far!
