So I open up the old watch box today in the AM to see which one gets wrist action today… It was between the Pam 341 egiziano or my AP ROO.
Now if I’m planning on doing a lot of running around and work, I would have obviously gone with something sapphire as apposed to the plexi pam which could get scratched very easily… But I knew I wasn’t doing anything major today so on my wrist the egi went.
Later on in the day I came home and I had forgotten I was wearing the egi which normally doesn’t happen esp due to the size .. I was standing next to a wall in my house and lifted my arm up to wipe my face and when I dropped my arm, the face of the crystal had banged and dragged on my dry wall… I was so scared to look at the damage and couldn’t believe what I had done.. My egi has not had one scratch on it from over a year of wear 2 to 3 times a week…
My first thought was, “calm down, this watch did come with an extra crystal” I then twisted my wrist to look at the damage and there it was, scratches streaked right down the whole face of the crystal with some white paint from the dry wall..
Now, I have several jewelry buffing compounds as well as a 3 stage buffing wheel and I have buffed and polish acrylic crystals many times and even though it takes the scratches out, it never leaves it looking perfectly brand new..
I have read about poly watch so many times and it’s less abrasive then any of the compounds I have for my buffing wheel. The scratches were not so deep but they were there.. I really didn’t feel comfortable taking a watch of this value to my buffing wheel as I have only done this with vintage rolex tropic crystals… I’m not familiar with panerai’s crystal at all and I also knew I wouldn’t be happy with the end result unless it looked perfect brand new.
Off I went to my local jewelry supply store and picked up a tube of poly watch and a soft fiber cotton jewelers cloth.
Sat my egi on my watch bench crossed my fingers and started to apply the first coat to the scratched area’s.
Then the second coat and then a 3rd coat… then I went over the whole crystal the 4th time with poly watch to blend everything and then buffed off the excess poly watch.
Under a 10x loop and even with my naked eye the crystal looks flawless. I have heard people using tooth paste as an alternative which does not work what so ever and will leave your crystal looking foggy and even more scratched. Poly watch polishing compound is amazing. I wish I took a before and after pic but im sure you could imagine at the time how I was feeling about the whole thing so that was the last thing on my mind.
Buffing out a crystal on a polishing wheel is fine but does wear down the crystal much faster and will unshaped the crystal and take away from sharp crisp edges where’s poly watch doesn’t because it is such a light compound and is done by hand. Depending on just how deep your scratches are, you may need to repeat the poly watch applications several times before your crystal looks new again.
Now maybe I was a bit dramatic about how bad the scratches were on my egi. They were not very deep gashes as I scraped my watch on a smooth surface. But the scratches where clearly there and were bad, but it could have been worse.
This stuff is like a miracle in a tube and have read so many times on the net about it but never really believed in it that much because I knew how much of a perfectionist I am and I didn’t want to believe something that comes in a tube and that is so simple to use could work such wonders.
Anyways , so it was a happy ending to a bad day. Back in the the watch box the egi went and now I will have a good night sleep. Thanks for reading and hope this will encourage others to give poly watch a shot. Like I said, after looking and inspecting the crystal with a 10x loop and with my naked eye for over 20 min, it looks perfect, not one swirl or scratch. Simply flawless even checked the crystal under natural sun light and looks perfect.
