WatchTool.co.uk Supplying Watch Tools

Almost all watches need to have a clear protective surface to cover the dial and the tiny hands. But almost everyone manages to crack the glass over their watch atleast once in their life time! But they can be replaced quite easily. 

Almost all of us have a watch that we got at special occasions. It might be when you passed out of school, graduated or got your first job and your first paycheck. These watches may not be that great to look at but they have a huge amount of sentimental value attached to it. We’d love to use them regularly and sometimes they do get damaged with such frequent use. The worst thing that can happen is your watch having its glass face cracked due to an accident. The glass can be repaired if it available easily but there are several different varieties of glass in the market. And the watchmaker may not be able to source exactly the one you want for your watch.  

For example wrist watches have different shapes like square, round and fancy. The crystals which cover the watch face also come in the same shapes as the watch face. You can get a lot of different materials which are used to form the transparent covering of the watch face like plastic, glass, as well as synthetic sapphire. Plastic and glass facings are easily available but the sapphire crystals are expensive and not easy to find.  Patek Philippe, Rolex, Breitling all use these types of crystals as the sapphire crystals last for a longer amount of time. They are also very resistant to scratches and injuries.    

Sapphire crystals which are round can be easily sourced and made but fancy shaped crystals like square and elliptical are extremely difficult to grind and make. And of course if you break the one on your wristwatch, it’s just that much difficult to replace. Watchmakers will have to specially grind round crystals to make your specific watch face shape and then attach it to the watch facing with a plastic gasket ring.  As the watch glass is ground there are chances that the crystal facing will not fit properly. If that happens, you will lose your glass facing again. But a good adhesive like A&F Minad UV Curing Mineral Glass Adhesive becomes useful by cementing the glass face to the watch casing.
Well, worth the headache if you get a almost-new wrist watch, isn’t it?