How to Remove a Watch Crystal Magnifier

Do you have a magnifier window on your watch crystal that is in the wrong spot or just not useful? Use this guide to learn how to remove it from your watch crystal.

Tools Needed:

Step 1

To remove a watch crystal magnifier, you must first remove the watch crystal from the watch case. For help doing this, check out our guide on how to remove a watch crystal here.

Once the crystal has been removed from the watch lay it out flat on your heat resistant surface. Be sure that the side with magnifier is facing up toward the ceiling.

Step 2

Then, take your heat gun and holding it about 1 to 1 1/2 inches above the magnifier on the crystal, heat the glue for about 15 seconds. Your goal here is to apply the heat at a targeted portion of the crystal for as very short amount of time.

NOTE: It may take less than 15 seconds for you to melt the adhesive, what you should be looking for is for the glue to puff up under the magnifier.

It is extremely important that if you see smoke, or if the magnifier begins to turn a brown or yellow color, you stop applying heat immediately.

Step 3

Remove the heat from the crystal as soon as the glue bubbles up and grab it with your hot pad or parallel pliers to hold it steady. Quickly take your bench knife and using the flat edge of the blade slide the magnifier off of the face of the crystal.

Use medium pressure to avoid scratching the crystal or cutting yourself. DO NOT touch the hot crystal.

Step 4

Once the magnifier has been pushed off the crystal set the crystal down and let it cool back to room temperature. This may take a little bit of time.

After the crystal has cooled down again, hold the crystal and gently scrape the extra cement off with your razor blade.

Finished

Wipe the crystal off and replace it in your watch case. For help replacing the watch crystal you can check out this article. If you want to learn more about watch repair, you can check out our Learning Center.