Buffing out a sapphire Crystal! IT WORKED!!!!! A lot of

Hey all,
Some of you may recall I posted a short while back about a scratch that had magically appeared on my Sapphire Ghost. I dont know how it got there, it was a souvenir from my Vegas vacation. (the scratch, not the watch) So anyways, I had some responses and decided to order up some Diamond paste. This seemed to be the only possible solution other then sending the watch out to Invicta for a crystal replacement. I was also pointed to a post on TZ where someone had already performed the operation with success.
Lets start here, the scratch......

I probably should have circled it however I think you can see it clearly enough.
In this pic you can see it on top of the hands. This scratch turned out to be more like a CHASM or Canyon apparently as far as Sapphires go......

I decided to tape off the edges of the crystal as I didnt want to risk getting this pink goopy stuff in any seems.

Now on to the past. I ordered up some 3 micron for the heavy lifting and a tube of .25 micron for the finish work. This was how the the other poster from TZ had done it so I figured I would follow suit.

I had read to use a finger to rub the crystal however I wanted to try a soft cotton cloth first (aka old t-shirt)

Turns out the cloth just absorbs the paste and doesn't do much. Therefore, I decided to go with the finger method. go figure hehe

Well this was the point I had figured out that my scratch was just laughing at me. I had the Grand Canyon of scratches it seems. I figured it was do or die and decided to break out the big guns.........

Hmmm, this seems to be working but not enough

I had originally started out with a small buffing wheel and used the slowest setting on the Dremel. This was working, but I would have been there all night and I wasnt happy with that. So I decided on some even BIGGER guns. I moved onto a larger buffing wheel. You can see the smaller wheel on the counter and the larger wheel on the head of the Dremel, It was about the diameter of a quarter and a little harder as well.

I had always been a fan of letting the speed of the Dremel do the work and refrained from using any pressure. However It seems this is not the case here. It wasnt until I decided to put some pressure that I started to get some real results. The paste started to heat up and thin out, it seems as if it was making a more even coat on the wheel and the crystal. NOW I WAS MOVIN! My only concern was the amout of heat it was creating. i had to stop every 20 seconds of so just to let things cool off. I wasnt sure what that kind of heat would do to either the crystal or the watch as a whole.

Well after about an hour and 45 minutes I finally had a clean scratch free Sapphire crystal again!!!! i was PSYCHED!! This time could have been cut in half if I had known what I was doing and didnt start off so gently.
It's kind of hard to take a picture of nothing but here it is....

...more nothing to see

I am wearing the watch today. I am also wearing some pink hands as well.

Even after multiple hand washings and a shower I am left with some pinkness on my hands. Oh well, I can tell its going away. Small price to pay for a "labor of Love" and better then dealing with service!!!

More importantly, the watch cleaned up nicely. I actually used a bit of Windex and it looks as good as new!
Thanks for lookin'! I hope you enjoyed my first ever "walk though" I believe I should add this ....... Buff your sapphires at your own risk, I am not a pro, I didnt and still dont know what Im doing. For all I know I can have some kind of diamond poisoning on my hands now, I dont know
...and thanks to those who pointed me in the right direction. I had no idea about diamond paste! .....let's see, what else can I buff out now?....."honey? let me see your engagement ring" hehe
-TommyFeds



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2010 10:42AM by Reto.