First attempt at making a crystal

[EamonF]

Had an Oh Sh#t moment this week when I cracked the crystal on my nephews Tissot. As Im sure you well know finding a replacement for a 1970's square case is next to impossible so this necessitated a deep end dive into crystal manurfacture.. I found a cheap picture frame with the correct 1mm thickness and went at it with a routing bit.   The original plastic gasket was in good shape luckily so I taped this to the glass and traced it out with the router bit.(forgot to photograph this step unfortunately).

I then roughed it out with the dremel (with a whole lot of test fitting) the tidied it up with a cheap diamond whetstone with a 45 degree bevel. 

If you look at it closely you can definitely tell its home made but Im very happy with the result, and honestly it wasn’t as hard as I expected. Well worth giving it a shot on your old obscure watches!

 

Cheers

[JohnR725]

then just for reference for the future when you get into the crystal making business. Many of the material houses used to sell optical plateglass specifically designed for cutting watch crystals. As there were material houses out there and some watch shops that would cut custom crystals. The used to even sell crystal cutting machines over the years in various forms for cutting watch crystals

then a tip for the future as you get into the crystal cutting business. If you have ever looked at a glass crystal it will always have a very tiny bevel never will have a sharp edge. This is because typically crystals that have sharp edges can drop into the case such as if you are going to epoxy glue the crystal in. so where is your fitting your crystal making sure everything is sized exactly perfect and you push it back out with sharp edges usually it goes out at an angle and will chip.

 

 

 

[AndyGSi]

Would probably have been easier to get the nearest you could from the Sternkreuz catalogue and modify it.

[mikepilk]

Cousins sell flat blanks, https://www.cousinsuk.com/category/mineral-watch-glass-blanks

[spectre6000]

Well done!

[CYCLOPS]

most times I just cut a new crystal from large round mineral glass crystals....