tritto
WS Benefactor
Posts: 5,876
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Post by tritto on Nov 24, 2014 0:56:14 GMT -8
Hi George. I've tried polishing Seiko Hardlex (hardened glass) without great success. You can improve a really scratched up crystal to the point where it is ok, but you can't get to anything approaching a new crystal in my experience with hand polishing. Technique involves polishing with various grades of wet and dry and then cerium oxide or diamond paste. In the end, it costs more than a new crystal in materials and takes hours of works ( if you're doing it by hand anyway).
Time to get into fitting your own crystals?
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Post by orgigeorgie on Nov 24, 2014 1:58:37 GMT -8
Hi George. I've tried polishing Seiko Hardlex (hardened glass) without great success. You can improve a really scratched up crystal to the point where it is ok, but you can't get to anything approaching a new crystal in my experience with hand polishing. Technique involves polishing with various grades of wet and dry and then cerium oxide or diamond paste. In the end, it costs more than a new crystal in materials and takes hours of works ( if you're doing it by hand anyway). Time to get into fitting your own crystals? Pwoahh, that escalated quickly! I work on my own cars and like to say I have two left hands. With watches, I would hate to think what would happen. Having said that though...I'm usually up for anything, so if there is a tutorial that I can be linked to I'll have a read. Otherewise I'll dedicate some time next week to googling. cheers mate
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2014 2:02:39 GMT -8
SO today I discovered that yesterday at the beach my beater orient copped a massive scratch on the crystal. Looks pretty deep. Is it possible to polish this (crystal is mineral) or would that ruin clarity as I am presuming a certain amount of glass would have to be removed? George Send it to me George and I'll polish the scratch out FOC. Just cover the postage. I use a combination of a dremel type drill and various grit sand papers followed by jewellers polishing compounds. That's providing it is Hardex and not saphire crystal. That stuffs harder than Chuck Norris! Tone
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2014 7:59:01 GMT -8
SO today I discovered that yesterday at the beach my beater orient copped a massive scratch on the crystal. Looks pretty deep. Is it possible to polish this (crystal is mineral) or would that ruin clarity as I am presuming a certain amount of glass would have to be removed? George The only way to get rid of deep scratches in mineral crystals is to replace them. Polishing them will leave them clear but looking strange as the surface will not end up flat or with the original curve.
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Post by orgigeorgie on Nov 24, 2014 15:22:20 GMT -8
Cheers Tony, You're a legend mate. I am flat out this week but I'll try get in touch next week Cheers for the advice Penguinbce, I thought it would be something along those lines. Ugh what a paint. I don't think this crystal is even readily available. Atleast it was the beater watch is all I can say, but that hurts because it is still so nice.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2014 16:17:35 GMT -8
No problem. I make and use jigs to hold the crystals while I work on them with my glass polishing wheel so the finish looks factory not all wavey such as Pete is rightly saying about badly polished crystals.
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Adrian-VTA
Global Moderator
Adelaide, South Australia
Posts: 5,327
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Post by Adrian-VTA on Nov 25, 2014 1:40:38 GMT -8
Geday George,
I've had a go at polishing mineral crystals even with the proper stuff (cerium oxide), and it's never the result you want. I'll only ever do it if the crystal is completely unavailable. To get any sort of result, you'll need to polish the thing for at least 2 hours. It's not a good use of time.
That said, that Orient crystal, there *should* be a Sternkreuz equivalent you could replace it with.
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Post by SpinDoctor on Nov 26, 2014 15:40:05 GMT -8
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Post by orgigeorgie on Nov 26, 2014 16:08:37 GMT -8
hahaha classic costanza. I had the pleasure of timing my pogue over the last 24 hours - it runs about 84 seconds too fast over a 24 hour time period. I just timed it against the atomic clock website and the chronograph running. Probably not the most scientific way of measuring it - but doesn't bother me as I rarely run my life on time so why should my watch
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