Refinishing watch hands

CWR Technical Pages

To refinish watch hands:

1. Clean hands with detergent.

2. Remove any heavy corrosion, or paint using a glass scratch brush.

3. Polish hands on a leather buff stick with rouge to remove any scratches.

4. Polish hands on polishing cloth until a high luster is attained.

5. Clean hands with detergent and rinse well in water.

6. Electroplate hands with nickel or gold.

7. Clean and rinse.

8. Put hour hand on hand tack pointing left and put minute hand on hand tack pointing right.

9. Using a large clock oiler pick up some paint and quickly apply it to the underside of the hand starting at the base draw the paint to the end with one smooth motion. If you need more paint than can be picked up using a clock oiler, try a toothpick. The problem with using wood is sometimes pieces get into the paint and the wood also absorbs the paint quickly.

To refinish blued hands follow above steps 1 through 5, then place hands on a plate of steel or brass, hold the plate with a pair of pliers and heat bottom with alcohol lamp or torch just until hands start to change blue dump them into a can of water. This is the basic idea. You need to try different things until you find what works well for you. I have good results with this method.

You can also sometimes try using gun bluing touch-up pens or permanent marker, but I only would suggest this as a last resort.

I use lacquer-based model paint to refill paint-filled hands. This paint also works well on sweep second hands when it is thinned properly.

I use Bergeon luminous paint and sometimes Newall tritium to refill luminous hands.

Most of the time a good cleaning and a quick polish on a polish cloth is all it takes to make hands look great again.