9-sided Cut Glass

[benos]

I was looking at a Seiko with 9-sided Cut Glass. Does this glass polish up ok if scratched and cloudy or am I best to stay away.

Thanks
 

[trilo]

You might want to try wipe the glass from inside first, because it looks bit foggy to me. My experience is, that persistent fogging rarely occurs in mechanical watches (usually you see it with battery watches), but still worth a shot.

However, if it's moisture which happened to be there at time of taking the photo, you want to change o-rings and seals on that watch, after you have dried the watch.

Polishing mineral glass with compounds designed for pelxi glasses is no use as the particles are too soft (technically they will eat the mineral glass, but the effect is so minute that you wont see a difference). You need to work it with sand papers (on a glass slate), diamond stones and lapping pastes (with diamond or other material that can eat the mineral glass). Anything works really, as long as it's able to eat away the material and produces a nice and even result (you want to avoid deep scratches)

With a flat glass the task is "easy", but cut crystals are difficult, because you would have to get the angles straight and even. This is possible achieve, but will prove to be a hard and a difficult task because of the precision required.

If you decide to take up the challenge, please document the process (even if you fail). There are many of us who would be very much interested to learn more about polishing cut crystals!

EDIT: in short, if you have not tried it before, stay away for the time being, and hone your skills with flat crystals and reading about the topic.

If you want to know if NOS replacement crystals exsist, post the ref. number on your watch and people here will be able to search/inform you how to find spare parts, if you are not familiar with the process.

[SeikoFreek]

Feb 6, 2024 19:06:51 GMT -8 benos said:

I was looking at a Seiko with 9-sided Cut Glass. Does this glass polish up ok if scratched and cloudy or am I best to stay away.

Thanks
 
Call Otto Frei @ 510-832-0355. Press any option & ask for crystals. They will ask for the cal. case # on the back of the watch &
they'll see if they have it or not. If they do & you want it they'll connect you to ordering or help you from there.
I've got several from them. I' don't think the prices are that bad either.

[benos]

Thanks for the response guys. I've ended buying a few of these watches all are on the way. I even bought a non running one with decent glass incase all else failed I will steal the glass from that one. I will try the diamond polishing technique mentioned and let you know how i go. 

Thanks

[victor]

I bought this Cosmotron from a collector in Japan.  The faceted crystal was badly scratched, so he tried his hand at polishing it.  I think he did a pretty good job, for someone trying it the first time.  However, as you can see, the edges of the facets are rounded and the lines that delineate the nine separate facets are no longer clean and straight from one facet to the next.  It is what it is, and I think it is likely much better than what he started with; it's good enough until a correct crystal can be sourced.  I think that without experience and the proper tools that polishing up a scratched cut-glass crystal is a challenge.