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Polishing a faceted glass crystal


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Hi all,
I'm going to be refinishing this old Seiko Lord Matic when it arrives.
The metalwork is fairly easy BUT I've never tackled a faceted glass crystal.

Fauzflh.jpg
 
As it is almost impossible to locate a NOS one, I want to try to polish out some of the lighter scratches.
 
How do I go about doing this?
Products, techniques etc
 
Thanks
Robbie
 
Sent from my Honor 5c
 
 


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Hi, are you sure this is glass? With such a shape it would lend itself to being a flanged acrylic surely?
That said I'm sure you've done your research.

I have a contact a bit off the radar in the far side of Europe, with the correct numbers for the crystal I could ask if he potentially has this one?


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From my research it turns out to be glass unfortunately. Certainly pics of others (rare) show chips on the edges which would indicate glass not acrylic.

 

I've contacted Vlad (bigv6) on other forums and he's going to let me know if and when he gets one it BUT it would be great if you could ask your contact too.

Part number is ES0V09GCSF

 

Sent from my Honor 5c

 

 

 

 

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Probably hardlex.. a type of acrylic which is almost glass like.

Usually cerium oxide will polish out the crystal but I've had some of them heat up and crack...As you rightly mentioned the issue will be the angled corners which you will definitely loose if polishing with a dremel.

There are those who polish cases back to its original finish with sharp edges and mirrorred surfaces..I believe they use a jig which securely holds the cases and polish it with a hard surfaced lapping plate to get it flat. Quite an involved process so if you do go down this route share how you did it!

I have to agree with the others that your best bet would be to source an original crystal .

Anilv

 

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A forum member has kindly sent me a small specially made hand lapping plate made of tool steel with two finishes milled onto each side along with a sample of diamond paste.
I will be practicing on some other pieces first before trying it out on this impossible to find crystal. Even googling the watch model only brings up two entries its that "rare"

I will show my success/failure once the plate gets here and I've had a chance to try it out. Stay tuned.

Sent from my Honor 5c

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  • 3 weeks later...

Quick pic, excuse the dust and case scratches.

Also have to figure out why the date won't change. If I try with the crown, the crown won't turn for date (day does ok) also won't change date by advancing time. Thought it might be the same issue as the 5606 had with the plastic part cracking but apparently this 5206 never had that issue.

LyY0and.jpg

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wow.. thats lovely!
Thanks.
Fell I love soon as I saw the listing on eBay.
Love the way the dial changes colours depending on how the light hits it.
So far it's the only one of this model I have seen for sale and other models with a similar dial have succumbed to water ingress and started flaking.

Mine the gasket was almost glued in place by all the dirt having never been opened. This probably saved it.

The NOS crystal also has a top gasket to seal up against the case to give it double protection. Never seen that before. Just have to find a crown gasket now [emoji22]
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