Scratch-resistant watches?

johnniet

johnniet

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Joined
Jul 12, 1999
Messages
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A lot of the guys on here are real he-men that put out fires, catch bad guys, pull kittens out of trees, and otherwise spend their days protecting the rest of us wimps from the elemental forces of nature.
Guys like that can certainly use a g-shock.
I work in an air-conditioned office. As long as my watch is waterproof I'm not going to trash it (functionally speaking).
But you know, every watch I've had ends up with a scratched face (window? glass? I am ignorant of watch anatomy. You know, the part that gets scratched.)
So I'm looking for some choices with a protected, non-scratching window. One that really works. If it says "hardened-mineral glass" or something, and it scratched anyway, please mention it so that we know. If there's no hype in the advertising, but the damn thing just never scratched when it really should have, ESPECIALLY mention it.
 
RADO watches from Switzerland are supposed to be VERY scratch resistant due to a special ceramic coating on the case, bracelet, etc. I'm not sure whether or not the crystal is also more scratch-resistant than normal. I can find out more about it if you can't track down a local source. Any high-end watch dealer in CA should be able to give you some advice. Even though I am a watch collector, RADO is one of the few makes that I don't own - they are too highly polished for my tastes (but my son loves them). Good luck.

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Holger :c{{{<
AKTI Member No: A001324
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www.cockroachfarm.com
 
If memory serves correctly, there are three types of crystals available on watches (not counting the plastic that comes on the cheap LCD digital watches):

Acrylic: basically plastic. VERY easy to scratch, but it's shatter resistant. scratches can easily be polished out.

Mineral Glass: Fairly shatter resistant. Can be scratched by hard materials. Scratches cannot be polished out.

Sapphire: Not overly shatter resistant. Some people say it's prone to cracking with large rapid temperature changes but I haven't had a problem. I defy you to scratch it with anything short of a diamond.

So, if you want a watch crystal that you *will not* scratch, get one with a sapphire crystal.
 
What do you use to polish out the scratches?
I wouldn't mind doing that either, if it's easy.
 
Sapphire crystals (crystal is the word for the “window”) are the most scratch resistant ones. As mentioned, only diamond is harder and therefore able to put scratches in it. Most of the time these crystals are coated to make them anti reflective. These coatings are soft and can be damaged easily even if the crystal itself is still ok. A compromise is coating only the inside of those crystals.

Hardened mineral crystals are just “resistant”. Those are easier and cheaper to manufacture than the sapphire type and therefore the choice for mid-price ranged watches.

Acrylic is easily marred, but has several advantages. It is very light, highly impact resistant, easy to polish (to some extend) and easy to replace. Main advantage is that acrylic doesn’t chatter if it should break. Many authentic pilot watches have those crystals (most prominent example Omega Speedmaster, the “moon watch”). The idea behind it is, that it’s less than desired to have tiny glass shards flying around a cockpit containing sensitive instruments after the pilot/astronaut busted his/her watch.

For a desk jockey watch, sapphire crystal should the material of choice. To increase the protection make sure the watch has a bezel (the ring around the “window”). I’ve seen RADO watches where the unprotected sapphire crystal actually was slightly chipped on the outer edges. That’s the problem with hard materials in general. They can’t flex to absorb any kind of impact and will crack instead.
 
To polish slight scratches you can use ordinary toothpaste. Apply a small amount without water and rub it with a clean cotton cloth. For deeper scratches you should ask your local watchmaker. It might be easier to just replace the crystal.
 
Holy $#&!, the toothpaste worked! May have left some marks or scratches of its own though. Another direction to investigate.
(Would 0.5 micron CrO paste work too? Maybe even better? I swear I won't try to brush my teeth with it.)
 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by johnniet:
What do you use to polish out the scratches?
I wouldn't mind doing that either, if it's easy.</font>
Click to expand...

I use Polywatch on acrylic crystals. It's a wonderful product. You can get it from Sheely Wholesale Distrib (http://www.sheelywholesale.com/).
 
Big synthetic sapphire crystal fan here. After 15 years of very hard use, the crystal on my Submariner is still awaiting its first scratch. In fact, on Submariners, the sapphire crystal is actually slightly raised to protect the bezel from scratches! I have managed to put a couple of extremely small nicks on the exposed corner, but they're pretty much invisible to the naked eye.

Bottom line- I'd recommend either going sapphire or acrylic. In my experience, mineral glass represents what was a valiant attempt to reach a compromise between the two extremes of acrylic and sapphire, but which in the final analysis seems to suffer more from the combined disadvantages of each of the aforementioned, rather than benefit from their respective advantages.

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Semper Fi

-Bill
 
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