Eliminating Rust on Hands in a Maurice Lacroix Watch

[Francisco]

A friend of mine asked me help to solve a problem with his Maurice Lacroix quartz watch. The problem is that the hands show rust. Here a picture of the watch.

The following picture shows better the rust problem:

The owner does not know what happened. He does not remember any humidity in the inside the watch. I had not faced this problem before. Therefore, I tell you how I solved it and a couple of things I have discovered.

First step is to remove the movement. The back is screwed using 4 screws.

After removing the back a possible origin of the rust is shown. Look to the very thin gasket employed for sealing the back. The watch is marked as 100 meter water resistant. I cannot believe it, with this so small gasket and only 4 screws. However, perhaps the problem is just that the quality of the hands is poor, although they are harder than the majority of the hands on our reps.

Next step is to remove the stem. Removing the stem in quartz movement sometimes is a bit tricky, because you have to find the way to do it. However, in this case, an arrow shows where you have to press. No problem. BTW, this is an ETA movement.

And no problem to remove the movement form the case, because a plastic ring is employed. Next step is to remove the hands. The plastic protects the dial and the hands at the same time.

Next picture shows the rust. Hour hand is in a very bad condition. Minute hand has some rust, but only visible with loupe or macro photo. Seconds hand is perfect. As shown, I am using plastic tweezers to prevent scratches.

The solution I used was Cape Cod. Let us check if it works.

However, there are several possible problems employing Cape Cod. What about the lume? Will it be destroyed? Will Cape Cod dissolve the lume? Or will it stain it? I was not very worried because I could re-lume the hands. However, it is better to keep the original lume. Let

[sander]

This is good to hear.

I sometimes see hands which are a little scratched in the factory.

Good to know that Cape Cod will probably get them out and do no harm to the lume.

Thanks for the write up Francisco!

[RWG Technical]

Well done, results speak for themselves.

Great job.

RG

[scoobs1971]

Thnx for sharing!

[freddy333]

Nice work.

A standard polishing cloth also works well.