How to Remove a Glued in Crystal with Hand Pressure

The crystal on your favorite watch has become so scratched you can hardly read the time, what now? Don’t throw away your watch! You can easily learn how to remove a damaged watch crystal with hand pressure using this guide.

Tools Needed:

• A Selvyt cloth
• And optionally a flat head screwdriver or knife blade

Step 1

First, you need to open the watch case and remove all the important parts of the movement to avoid damaging them. Now that you have removed the inner workings of the watch, all that should be left is that watch case and the old crystal.

Step 2

Wrap your Selvyt cloth around the watch case so that you cover both sides of the crystal to protect your fingers. Turn the watch so that the back of the watch case is facing up toward the ceiling and hold the watch case so that your thumb presses down on the back of the watch crystal.

Step 3

Check that the cloth is still sitting between your fingers and the watch crystal, then apply pressure with your fingers to force the crystal out of the watch case.

Step 4

When the crystal pops out of the watch case, set it aside. Depending on the condition of the watch crystal, it may come out in one piece or it may break into several pieces. You can use your flat head screwdriver to scrape away any remaining shards of the crystal and glue.

Finished

Now that you’ve removed the watch crystal, you can learn How to Reinsert and Attach your Watch Crystal with this guide. To learn more about other quick and easy watch repair tips, check out our Learning Center.