Place to repair/polish watch.
 

Hey all,

I'm looking for a watch shop or some form of shop that repairs/polishes Sapphire glass and chrome finishes. My watch has a few scratches on the glass/chrome parts and would like to renew it.

Thanks!

I'm interested in this too,
also anyone recommend a place with a good selection of watch straps, mine is beginning to crack but it's really easy to switch out so i might just get a bunch for different outfits/occasions

Anyone?

Hi guys!
I was interested in this too, and saw this DIY blog of a person who refinished a Rolex stainless steel case. It seems quite easy actually, but I'm not sure how one would polish the face parts of a case. Scratched bezels would likely require outright replacement?

Nicholas Hacko Watchmaker: Rolex Case Polishing

Otto Freidl in Hotel Vancouver does case refinishing and crystal polishing.

Worth a try? Unless you have a really expensive watch :p

TimeZone: TZ Classics: How to remove a scratch from a sapphire crystal.

For watch case, I've heard people having good results with cape cod cloth

i heard tooth paste can help if the scratch isn't too deep.

slightly off topic but are there any watch makers who give lifetime warranties?
my friend tried to convince me that high end watches come with lifetime warranties.
i tried to politely tell him that afaik thats not true, but i didnt press it.

ive used tooth paste on my old zippo case and it worked pretty good

Most watches will not have lifetime warranty. A quickle google search reveals a couple companies that do offer lifetime warranty, such as Skagen and Rotary (although they require to send in for servicing every 3 years for warranty to remain valid)

Time & Gold must do that.

So my buddy's Pam Fiver was out of warranty, and he let me take a crack at it.

I happened to have some Ipod polish from back in the day, pretty much restored it to new! Also, I used some ebay diamond paste to fix the sapphire.

If your watch is stainless steel, you can pretty much fix scratches yourself if you take the proper time and care.

Yes, if I messed it up he would just take it back to the dealer and pay for spa treatment.

I'll take an "after" pic after he is done freaking out how well it turned out.

http://i51.tinypic.com/9hmkr6.jpg

what diamond paste did you use?
1/4?

Sorry I am unfamiliar with 1/4 diamond paste usage, i think that is smaller than what i used.

I used a generic 5 and 3.5 micron paste, then 1.0 micron paste.

The three syringes ran me about $35.00

As you can see I masked off the bezel so I wouldn't get any diamond paste in there. Also, make sure the AR coating is inside, I wouldn't do this with AR on the outside.

Good luck and DIY at your own risk

Cheers!

I've taken my watches to the Bay...They send them out to a 3rd-party and it works like a charm. Sent 2 of my watches, it's affordable and they do a good job.

time to revive this tread!

anyone brought their watches to http://www.antiquewatchhunters.com/index.html

If you're looking to get a nice watch done, full case/bacelet refinish, Time and Gold can get that done for you for about $200 or so give or take. They have an in-house guy that can do full refinish on stainless steel bracelets and cases (polished or brushed). A friend of mine brought his rolex there for them and it came back looking as it were brand new off the shelf.

THey may be able to help you fix the saphire crystal as well.

Another spot that might be able to help you is "The German Watchmaker" in Yaletown on Homer St. I've brought one of my watches there on a number of occasions to get fixed (watch was running way too fast).

Been wondering about this lately too; have a 10 year old Tag Heuer Monaco that could use a polish. The trouble is the case is both polished an brushed SS.
A friend from work lent me a titanium polish pad for the brushed parts and a small amount of SS Green Polishing rouge along with a few cotton dremel wheels. Havent done the face yet to worried of screwing it up. Piece of advice he told me though and would be useful to other DIYourselfers is to take your time with the dremel wheel on the case as the heat could cause the crystal to pop out!

I polished the back of the case on Sunday and was happy with the results; figured I would try polishing the back first since you dont see it. I'll post some pictures when I get on my desktop

There's a great watchmaker down in Yaletown

German Watchmaker.

or

If you are closer to Robson, Satcchi and Satcchi can have it sent out for polish