[Boatanchors] Lighted Meter Dial Reproduction

[L L bahr]

Bill Cromwell, KU8H appropriately pointed out to me I need a translucent dial face and not an opaque one. Thanks, Bill.  I must have had a senior moment there!

Lee, w0vt



 
I'm in the process of restoring a fairly sad WRL Globe Champion 300 transmitter.  It's meter is a disaster.  Right now I have a donor meter having a similar front cover , so I have that base covered.  I also obtained another meter for a WRL transmitter but the scale in it is wrong.  My original meter is working, but the dial is VERY orange.  I am assuming the dial was once white and not orange and over time heat from the back lite lamp inside the meter has yellowed the plastic dial face to where it is now orange.  

I would like to make a new dial face for my meter.  I see a lot of help on the internet on how to reproduce a non lighted meter face but nothing on a lite one.  How do you print to fairly inflexible opaque sheet? (Light has to go through the meter dial face.)  I'm pretty sure if I can accomplish the above I'll move over to a LED lamp to reduce heat in the meter so it does not happen again.  The only thing I can think of is printing on some kind of white paper allowing light to penetrate and then laminating it before cutting to size and installing on the meter.  I don't think a LED replacement lamp would affect the laminated new dial face.  Another possibility I thought might work would be to print the scale on overhead Mylar projection sheet and then somehow attaching it in a sandwich with opaque white plastic sheet.

Is there anyone on here who has gone before me and perfected a way to make a new meter face for a lighted meter?  I sure could use some ideas on this one.  I have a new VFO dial cover, a new meter cover and someone lined up to re-silk screen my front panel.  None of this is going to look good with my ORANGE meter dial face.  HELP!!!

Lee, w0vt