Post by rw16610 on Sept 1, 2013 22:55:55 GMT -6
Every Sunday before the week officially begins I always give my watch a proper cleaning 
It includes a small vibrating cleaner from eBay, diluted dish soap to mix with the warm water in the cleaner, watch spray and a toothbrush. Before purchasing this cleaner in 2010 all of my previous watches were cleaned 100% manually. Suspending parts of the watch into this device makes it a lot easier on me and after it gets rinsed and done over with watch spray to remove any soap residue (caused by the glycerin). The hollow center links always seem to trap dust / particles and anywhere the solution in the cleaner comes into contact with will have it removed.
As you all can tell I'm obsessed with taking care of my watch as I want it (the bracelet and all) to last my entire life and beyond. When I took it for a service at the independent watch maker last year the jewellery store owner commented on how insanely clean my watch was
After seeing stuff like this on Sheldon's site (minus4plus6.com) it makes me feel even better about the time invested in caring for this piece. The following was taken from his site, originally posted by "Alcan" on a forum as an example. The owner of the watch "Alcan" is a member here too I believe:
" Alcan posted these Bob Ridley images of his 1630 DateJust* bracelet. These imags show the importance of examining the bracelet pins periodically as well as keeping the bracelet clean."
It's insane to think a bit of dirt in hidden areas over the years can eat away at the metal like that, as if it were sandpaper!
So after cleaning my watch earlier I decided to take a few shots with my phone to share here:
Now here is a wrist shot from a few days back that sort of shows what gets trapped in the bracelet. On the crystal if you look closely you can see exactly what ends up in the cleaner after:
The nice thing about the Explorer II and other fixed bezel watches is the fact you have one less area to worry about getting dirt out of. Those bezels can eventually become tough to rotate and should be rotated while rinsing with warm water from the sink while you clean it.
What's your routine to keep your treasured timepiece clean?
It includes a small vibrating cleaner from eBay, diluted dish soap to mix with the warm water in the cleaner, watch spray and a toothbrush. Before purchasing this cleaner in 2010 all of my previous watches were cleaned 100% manually. Suspending parts of the watch into this device makes it a lot easier on me and after it gets rinsed and done over with watch spray to remove any soap residue (caused by the glycerin). The hollow center links always seem to trap dust / particles and anywhere the solution in the cleaner comes into contact with will have it removed. As you all can tell I'm obsessed with taking care of my watch as I want it (the bracelet and all) to last my entire life and beyond. When I took it for a service at the independent watch maker last year the jewellery store owner commented on how insanely clean my watch was
After seeing stuff like this on Sheldon's site (minus4plus6.com) it makes me feel even better about the time invested in caring for this piece. The following was taken from his site, originally posted by "Alcan" on a forum as an example. The owner of the watch "Alcan" is a member here too I believe:
" Alcan posted these Bob Ridley images of his 1630 DateJust* bracelet. These imags show the importance of examining the bracelet pins periodically as well as keeping the bracelet clean."
It's insane to think a bit of dirt in hidden areas over the years can eat away at the metal like that, as if it were sandpaper!
So after cleaning my watch earlier I decided to take a few shots with my phone to share here:
Now here is a wrist shot from a few days back that sort of shows what gets trapped in the bracelet. On the crystal if you look closely you can see exactly what ends up in the cleaner after:
The nice thing about the Explorer II and other fixed bezel watches is the fact you have one less area to worry about getting dirt out of. Those bezels can eventually become tough to rotate and should be rotated while rinsing with warm water from the sink while you clean it.
What's your routine to keep your treasured timepiece clean?
It feels so nice after it's cleaned. I never owned this ultrasonic cleaner with any other solid center link watches to compare how much stuff gets trapped in there vs a solid bracelet. The one thing that makes me want to try out the updated models and see how they wear over all compared to the discontinued pieces.