Learning to polish (tips)?

impalla62ss · Jun 27, 2024

Canuck
High speed, powerful polishing machines tend to rip stuff out of your hands, and fire them at high speed. I suggest you refrain from learning on other people’s stuff! Stay away from jewellery items, especially chains!

These are gifts that I am purchasing for them. It is my stuff until I gift it. If I make a mess of it, I'll find another gift. I will practice on the cheap lot of watches in the post above. I appreciate your concern and feedback.

Canuck · Jun 27, 2024

impalla62ss
These are gifts that I am purchasing for them. It is my stuff until I gift it. I will practice on the cheap lot of watches in the post above. I appreciate your concern and feedback.

Forewarned is forearmed!

impalla62ss · Jun 27, 2024

Canuck
Forewarned is forearmed!

Thank you. Here is a photo of the cheap lathe that I purchased. I also have a lot of practice on a stationary grinding wheel, but not on watches, so I'll be prepared for flying watches.

dougwhiz · Jun 27, 2024

I was searching for a humorous over-polishing anecdote, but actually came up with a related OF thread on case polishing.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/over-polished-speedmaster.158026/

impalla62ss · Jun 29, 2024

Ok, the lot of junk practice watches I ordered are all chrome plate and no use to me. I am going to do a WTB for junk stainless and GP to practice hand polishing.

DaveK · Jun 30, 2024

impalla62ss
Ok, the lot of junk practice watches I ordered are all chrome plate and no use to me. I am going to do a WTB for junk stainless and GP to practice hand polishing.

Maybe those cheap redialed EBay monsters from India would be ideal for your practice sessions

impalla62ss · Jun 30, 2024

DaveK
Maybe those cheap redialed EBay monsters from India would be ideal for your practice sessions

The $30 watches above are intended for family Christmas gifts. I took your advice in a roundabout way. We exchange gifts during the holidays at work, so did a search on eBay for $5 to $10 watches to practice on. Got a few extra for when I make mistakes. I enjoy shopping for watches 😗, so this has been a lot of fun. I'll post photos of the practice watches when all my offers come back.

impalla62ss · Jun 30, 2024

Here are the practice watches I am acquiring.

DaveK · Jun 30, 2024

impalla62ss
The $30 watches above are intended for family Christmas gifts. I took your advice in a roundabout way. We exchange gifts during the holidays at work, so did a search on eBay for $5 to $10 watches to practice on. Got a few extra for when I make mistakes. I enjoy shopping for watches 😗, so this has been a lot of fun. I'll post photos of the practice watches when all my offers come back.

Just for clarity, I wasn’t referring to your gift watches as hideous eBay monsters. Getting practice watches for $5 is even better! I’ve seen bags of watches at some thrift shops for $10 or so. I got a nice Seiko diver that way.

good luck with the project 👍

impalla62ss · Jul 8, 2024

The journey begins. Time to destroy some cheap watches. Thanks again for all the tips. Sadly a lot of the cheap watch’s don’t need polishing. I still have plenty to practice on.

noless · Sep 11, 2024

I recently had some assignments on case refinishing at my school, and since i finished my assignment fairly quickly I took the chance to refinish an omega 3011/518 bracelet for one of my c-cases.

this is the auction photo of the bracelet, unfortunately i forgot to take my own photos, but this bracelet has seen some years of use and taken a liberal hit with a buffing wheel in its past. Most of the original hairlined finish is very shallow now, and the sides of the clasp were polished till even the remains of the original hairlined finish was gone.

I pulling it apart, lightly buffed the polished lines on the clasp on the large buff, as this is a folded part I left the deep scratches alone. I then used some kapton tape to mask the polished section and put the hairline back into everything with a scotchbrite wheel. then put the hairline onto the sides of the clasp within some sandpaper on a block to keep the lines parallel with the base of the clasp.

a quick trip to the ultrasonic and reassemble.

very pleased with it, I can recommend having a go on bracelets or casebacks when starting out. at least that's what we did at school.

p4ul · Sep 11, 2024

Nice work!

impalla62ss · Dec 5, 2024

Hello all, after the fire I did not have time to do much polishing, but I am in the process of polywatch for all and all a good night (couldn’t help myself). Between sniping and offers I stayed within my budget. Rolling the dice on watches without batteries has netted me a few DOAs that will be great for polishing practice. New batteries, straps and a couple of NOS bracelets. The most fun was the gold lady’s Seiko on the last photo. I bought a two tone for my step mom and then came across a salesman’s sample. It had no clasp and hard plastic encasing the ends of the bracelet. Took a heat gun and lots of scrubbing. Donated the insides of the two tone to the gold one. The old dial was prettier and I kept that. Anyway I have a long way to go and much more learning to do, but thanks to your advice I have all the tools, compounds, and wheels to learn with. I also learned that all the quartz fashion brand watches I picked up were garbage under the hood. BTW, the nieces and nephews are getting the Baby-Gs.