For watch lovers, it is a very heartbreaking moment to see dust and scratches on the watch crystal. Even if you take very good care of your watch, the crystals are very sensitive to the scratches. The watch will get scratches over time. It is a very unavoidable situation. Before you send out your watch for the crystal replacement, try these steps to make your watch’s face smooth again. There are many types of wristwatch crystals. This article is for cleaning the acrylic type watch crystal. If your watch’s face is made up of glass, please read here.
Removing scratches from the watch face is a very easy process. You will need some tools to make it effective. You will need a piece of tape to protect the bezel from accidental scratches. You will need sandpaper to smooth out the hard scratches. If your watch does not have many hard scratches, you can skip the 2nd step mentioned below. You will also need a polishing agent to clear the scratches.
Table of Contents
Steps to polish the crystal
1) Tape the bezel
Protect the bezel of the wristwatch before rubbing with sandpaper. You can use any type of tape for it. Otherwise, sandpaper can put scratches on the bezel.
2) Sandpaper
You will need sandpaper to make the surface smooth. Make sure you order low grit sandpaper. The grit of the sandpaper tells us the fineness or roughness of the paper. The grit 20 is rougher than the 600. So order the sandpaper from 600 to 1000 grit. Otherwise, you may damage the crystal. You can buy the sandpaper from amazon. I have given the link. If your watch has only a few small scratches then you can skip this step.
3) Polishing paste
Now wipe out the dust particles from the crystal surface. After that, you will need a scratch remover paste. Apply some paste on the watch crystal surface and then rub it with a soft piece of cloth. Rub it until the scratches do not get disappeared. In the market, there are dozens of polishing agents available. I have listed some of them.
a) Polywatch plastic scratch remover
This is a very popular scratch removing paste. It is available on amazon at very cheap price. It is very easy to use paste. Just apply it in the whole watch crystal and rub it with soft cloth. Repeat it for 2-3 times. You will see scratches are getting disappear slowly.
Here is a very good review and testing video of polywatch agent. Click here to watch it.
b) Polywatch scratch remover with some tools
It is the same scratch remover as the first. It just gives you some extra wiping clothes and String buff soft for final polishing or to achieve a mirror finish.
c) Sumner Laboratories 23305 210 Plus Plastic Scratch Remover Cleaner
This is another plastic scratch remover. Although this product can be used for any type of plastic. But it will work on acrylic crystal as well. Because acrylic is also kind of plastic.
4) Cleaning
Now you can clean the watch with a cleaning agent. You can even use petrol to remove any kind of fingerprint spot. If not petrol then you can use nail remover to clear any kind of dust particles or spots.
5) Repeat
If you are seeing some positive results then you can repeat the process two-three times. Because sometimes it takes time to remove the scratch.
Conclusion
Scratch removing or watch polishing is a very interesting and fun process. In this article, we learned How To Polish A Watch Crystal. But if none of the mentioned steps worked for you then you should definitely replace the crystal. Because sometimes scratches are very deep and will not go away with any type of polishing agent or scratch remover. So it is recommended that you go to any nearby watch repair shop and get your watch crystal replaced.
