Rotating a dial?

[ACC1965]

My niece is a lefty and there are not many left handed / distro watches around.

I was toying with the idea or buying an older, not in great shape watch, and rotating the dial. Assuming no date/day feature, is this possible? The hands could be removed and replaced to align on the 12 together.

Are most pins chiral or would they need to be removed? Is this what products like "Uhren Pevak® Double-sided adhesive dots for attaching watch dial" are for?

On a side note, I am assuming this can not be done to transform a typical chonostop into a driver since the seconds hand will not jump to the correct location. Could a skilled watchmaker remedy this?

 

[TexOmega]

dial has dial feet held on by tiny screws.......but, yes you can snip them and reglue in any orientation you wish on any watch you own. Whether it is a great solution, only time will tell.

 

[Eddie K]

Just buy her a mirror

 

[DaveK]

As a lefty myself, I can share a little secret that it is actually more comfortable to wear a standard watch on your right wrist.

 

[Dan S]

Yes, the dial dots are for attaching dials when the dial feet are broken. I don't see a problem doing this for fun with a cheap watch. Snipping the dial feet off of a nice watch would be a bit of a shame, because it can be tricky to replace them without damaging the dial. But obviously you can do anything you want with your watches.

 

[sathomasga]

ACC1965

I was toying with the idea or buying an older, not in great shape watch, and rotating the dial. Assuming no date/day feature, is this possible? The hands could be removed and replaced to align on the 12 together.

Very possible. If you're keen on doing it yourself or just want to see what it would entail, have a look at, e.g., DIY Watch Club who publish a lot of quality videos on the steps involved. You could also have a Seiko modder or a local watchmaker do it.

ACC1965

Are most pins chiral or would they need to be removed? Is this what products like "Uhren Pevak® Double-sided adhesive dots for attaching watch dial" are for?

On the Seiko NH3x or 4R3x series movements the two dial feet are positioned 180° apart. So if you can find a no-date watch based on one of those movements (maybe a Microbrand), no removal is necessary. Otherwise, Dial Dots work quite well.

 

[Archer]

It really depends on the movement. Some can be flipped 180, and some not.

 

[Pvt-Public]

Since the only real difference is the winding stem, couldn’t she just wind the watch before putting it on. No modification necessary.

 

[Foo2rama]

By snapping of the dial feet and using dots this can work as long as there is no date wheel. Unless the a right handed date wheel part is made like some Omega movements.

 

[Davidt]

Is it necessary?
I’m right handed but wear my ‘normal’ watches on my right wrist (no idea why I do that - always have) and have never felt the left for a left handed watch/dial.

 

[WestCoastTime]

Also note that if you have a Date window aperture at 3, & you rotate the dial 180deg then this is now at 9 & displaying & upside down numeral. But you are then rotating the whole watch around another 180deg to get the crown on the left. So you still get a readable Date

 

[Archer]

WestCoastTime

Also note that if you have a Date window aperture at 3, & you rotate the dial 180deg then this is now at 9 & displaying & upside down numeral. But you are then rotating the whole watch around another 180deg to get the crown on the left. So you still get a readable Date

Not quite - the date indicator has 31 days, so it is not symmetrical. I've converted watches for people in the past, as part of doing a service - this is an IWC Aquatimer, with the dial with your suggestion to just rotate the dial 180 - I took this photo because many people believe it's just a matter of flipping the dial around, but it's not:



You need a custom printed date wheel, which the person I did the work for supplied to me, and once you install that the date looks fine in the destro configuration:



So it's a little more than just rotating the dial.

Cheers, Al

 

[Jakeys]

Archer

Not quite - the date indicator has 31 days, so it is not symmetrical. I've converted watches for people in the past, as part of doing a service - this is an IWC Aquatimer, with the dial with your suggestion to just rotate the dial 180 - I took this photo because many people believe it's just a matter of flipping the dial around, but it's not:
You need a custom printed date wheel, which the person I did the work for supplied to me, and once you install that the date looks fine in the destro configuration:
So it's a little more than just rotating the dial.
Cheers, Al

Al, I hope you'll excuse my taking this thread a little off topic, but how do you organise your photos that you can pull such relevant information from 12 years ago? Are you taking photos of everything you do and tagging or categorising them somehow, or do you just have a memory of every watch you've worked on and when? It's really impressive.

 

[Archer]

Jakeys

Al, I hope you'll excuse my taking this thread a little off topic, but how do you organise your photos that you can pull such relevant information from 12 years ago? Are you taking photos of everything you do and tagging or categorising them somehow, or do you just have a memory of every watch you've worked on and when? It's really impressive.

How do I organize the photos? The answer is, not very well in some ways and if I had to start over I would have done things differently. For the actual photo files, I have a file folder on my computer for every watch I service, so all the photos and the final document that I give to the customer, showing what was done. Even with terabytes of storage, it fills up quickly, so I eventually remove files to DVD's to make space.

I transfer photos of interest to a Photobucket account, and that is less well organized. I have several folders that are just collections of photos I wanted to post for some specific reason, just randomly stuck in there, and when they get to a certain size (around 1,000 photos), I start another one. Based on my memory of when the watch was serviced, I can go to the folder that I'm usually 75% sure will have the photo, and find it from there. I later started topic specific folder for various tasks that I get asked about a lot, so for example there's a folder on installing hands and dials, another for rotor bearing/bushing repairs, etc.

It would be impossible to remember every watch, so for example if someone asked me to remember a Speedmaster I did a routine service on 3 years ago, well that's not going to happen. Now if there's something particular about a Speedmaster that sets it a apart from all the other hundreds that I've serviced, then yes I can likely remember it. Examples include completely flooded watches, or the one that was run over by a car, or the one that a guy was wearing when he was bitten by a dog. But the regular service ones not so much.

For this example in this thread, I didn't do many of these conversions, so I knew roughly when it was done, and found it in the right folder in about 2 minutes.