Lense Glass Scratches

[Jim H]

Evening Gentlemen,

I’ve been meaning to post this a while, however the subject has probably been covered before - I dunno?

Can scratches be polished out by a professional? I know glass is tough as hell and I’ve tried to do before with Jewelers Rouge. To no effect, despite my efforts.

The scratches are minor, but enough to see.

This is on my Seiko. It’s only a couple of years old, I probably shouldn’t wear it as my ‘Day Watch’ - but I like it a lot - and do.

Would it perhaps be better to engage with a reputable jeweller to get the lense replaced with a new one?

Any ideas what something like that would cost?

[Super Sonic]

Seiko glass is made out of 'hardex' which is not as hard as sapphire. If it can be scratched it can be polished. Only thing is, by the time you've bought all the different grades of abrasive, it may have been cheeper to just get it replaced. Really fine abrasive is available from your local model hobby shop from tamiya who do abrasive paper especially for plastic down to 4000 grade iirc, and it can polish aircraft cockpit canopies to a clear shine, but it's not cheap!

[Mr Pointy]

Replacing the glass on a watch is usually a straighforward job, especially if it's a current model, & any decent repair shop can do it or you can send it to Seiko (but postage adds a fair bit to the cost):

https://www.seikoservice.co.uk/

[r159]

I have tried polishing mineral glass, generally you can clean up minor stuff but a decent depth one is very difficult.

I’d get a new crystal, you could even get an upgrade to sapphire.

[Jim H]

Good morning Gents,

Many thanks for the advice. I’ll look into getting a new lense fitted, then retire it out of daily use.

[blue_haddock]

polywatch is meant to work well on seiko hardlex.

[Macneil]

I've used Polywatch on a couple of watches, the problem is that if a watch is a scratch magnet, it's a scratch magnet. Swap for a good crystal is a good suggestion.