How do you remove scratches on watch glass? It depends on what kind of glass it is, but there are ways you can try at home.
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Can I polish any watch glass? You can achieve particularly good results with a watch with a plastic or Perspex glass.
Which glass is used in watches? In addition to plastic, mineral glass and sapphire glass are also used. However, these glasses are significantly more expensive.
Why is it difficult to polish mineral and sapphire crystal? Due to the extreme hardness, you can achieve only a little with commercially available abrasives. An additional problem arises, as sapphire crystal is usually anti-reflective
Despite smartphones and smartwatches, a watch is still a fashion accessory that rounds off an outfit. It is therefore particularly annoying when there are streaks or small scratches on the glass and ruin the appearance. We will show you how to polish the watch glass and give tips on what to consider with the different materials.
Steps to remove scratches on watch glass
1. Not every watch glass is the same
The individual models differ not only in terms of price and quality, but also in terms of different watch glasses.
Typically, most watch manufacturers use the following glass variants:
- Plastic glass: A plastic or Perspex watch glass is relatively inexpensive and also very light. Impacts and impacts can also have little impact on the material, as it is comparatively soft and breaks less quickly. However, this advantage is also the biggest drawback, as it is easy to scratch the surface.
- Mineral glass: Mineral glass is often installed in slightly higher-quality watches, which is much harder and therefore more insensitive to scratches. If you scratch the surface once, for cost reasons only the replacement of the watch glass is usually suitable.
Good to know: The world’s most expensive watch, a Patek Philippe, was auctioned for a staggering 31 million dollars.
- Sapphire glass: The noble glass version is only used for expensive watches. The extremely hard material is almost scratch-resistant and therefore extremely durable. Since the glass is additionally anti-reflective to avoid reflections, a polish by hand is very complex and not recommended.
Especially with high-quality watches, you should bring the watch to the watchmaker in case of doubt. The costs are generally manageable. Moreover, it makes little sense to invest a great deal of time if the result achieved is mediocre.
2. To remove scratches on watch glass – this is how to proceed
Since plastic can be easily scratched and good results can be achieved during manual cleaning, we would like to introduce you here with instructions for polishing plastic watch glass:
When polishing, you can remove small scratches by sanding the surface. Scratched glass is therefore sanded so that the scratch is no longer visible. In the case of extremely deep scratches, the glass must be replaced.
Watchmakers have professional tools to polish watch glass.
It is best to lightly sand the glass with very fine sanding paper. This results in a very milky surface. Then apply polishing paste to a cloth. Massage the liquid in small circular movementsso that it is fully absorbed.
It is best to work with little pressure. Instead, show plenty of patience so that the polish can penetrate into the fine spaces between them.
After a few minutes, you should already be able to see a clear difference.
Many scratches can be removed — or at the very least improved — by polishing them with a liquid brass polish. As with any other method to remove scratches from a watch glass, start gently!
If you do not want to spend money on a suitable polish immediately, you can also clean thewatch glass with toothpaste first. The home remedy is particularly suitable because it contains very fine abrasive particles that gently smooth the surface.
Tip: If you want to try to repair scratches on ceramic or sapphire glass watch glass, you can’t avoid buying a professional dremel. If, on the other hand, you only want to polish superficial streaks, use a fine cloth as well as some detergent and water or the bottle with glass cleaner.
