Black polishing a Patek Philippe plate

[@morgansinner]

Black polishing done at its finest, great job 👏

[@simonclegg5301]

Fantastic Kalle, thanks for sharing your skill and “knowledge “. All of it adds to our watch repair armoury. That result is stunning. Cheers.

[@ChronoglideWatchmaking]

My pleasure!

[@cs-electronic]

Great skills here! The plate is even more shiny than all the otber plates in the watch.

[@sthildas4857]

I polish car paint 3000grit ect..thank you for sharing that wonderful skill. We measure the microns removed. 🇬🇧

[@johnnyarsenault9124]

Your client is going to be mighty proud of the end results of your polishing & maintenance! 👌❤️👍😍

[@perkulo6379]

Thank you Kalle for showing the end result, stunning watch and great work. 👍

[@geraldquist2209]

Thank you for posting this ! You are showing honor and respect to yourself, to your client and to Patek Philippe of the “Golden Age”.

[@SarcastSempervirens]

Absolutely superb! I love polishing, the satisfaction is just unparalelled. I used to work on guitars and lacquer does not forgive. Did polish some katanas and swords and steel is simply the material of the gods. Thank you for these precious tips and info, Kalle!

[@mesomachines]

I learned how to do this years ago and it's incredibly satisfying to see the finished results.

[@steve1811uk]

Really beautiful, so satisfying

[@timmy11toes]

Thanks for this. Superb result. An absolute must for the finishing to be in keeping with the rest of the movement. Great work.

[@gioc4596]

Thank you for showing us the Amazing result of this restoration!!

[@Stoocius]

Yes please for a stream on black polish. The processes fascinate me but a good result is stunning.

[@popecosh307]

It’s basically a mirror polish which is a process of moving from lower grits to higher ones. There’s not much to it it’s just really time consuming and the experience is necessary for knowing which grits to use and when to use them.

[@hortehighwind8651]

@@popecosh307sounds a lot like knife sharpening

[@popecosh307]

@@hortehighwind8651 very similar… which ironically is what gave me the experience in polishing metals, and working in a metal fabrication shop. The thing that’s different about watches are that they are very often plated with other metals and that was definitely a learning process

[@hartr33]

Brilliant!

[@Vadym1406]

Beautiful result! I'll wait for the video about black polishing

[@bfx8185]

Kalle I have almost the same setup only I have every lapping film on separate thick glass frame. And my final stage is hard wood. It's incredible as good it is.

[@franknovak4301]

Magnificent!!!

[@adfpv1153]

Excellent result Kalle what a beauty. Thanks my friend.

[@nilu7862]

Impressive result!

[@ElderPinto254]

prachtige tool en mooi resultaat!! bedankt kalle..

[@mikebruegger8654]

Absolute perfection!

[@mishmarfrans]

prachtige bewerking, dat polishing...

[@markgardiner5150]

Tremendous process, nicely done. A video would be of great interest!

[@thecleaner4971]

Excellent ❤

[@richardkent2200]

This is genius- NASA be you as a consultant

[@Marty810]

Wow!!!

[@zorbakaput8537]

"I like it a bit thicker and a bit heavier" That's what she said.

[@richardkent2200]

That is need!

[@richardkent2200]

That I need

[@francescocorti2341]

Hello, just one clarification from my side: alfter polishing of flat surface, should I restore the chamfers through polishing?

[@problemwithauthority]

Is the same process used on screws? Do you make a plate to hold multiple screws at the same time?

[@MichaelHeinrich1]

Is it possible to restore the geneva stripes?

[@erikwinkler]

Hoe verlijm je de schuur folie op het glas? Ik kan mij voorstellen dat de lijm ook extreem dun en glad moet zijn.

[@ChronoglideWatchmaking]

Het is stickerfolie inderdaad op glas Erik.

[@bfx8185]

Those lapping film are sold as a sticker. The best is stick it on to think piece of glass.

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

How many ångströms is that ? ;)

[@raymond15101984]

Nice job! Where do you buy those papers?

[@ChronoglideWatchmaking]

We buy them from Cousins UK, but there must far more wholesalers.

[@ppod-]

I would like to share my experience in hopes that it will help folks who do not have an extravagantly sized chunk of tin, and I have a question: I was able to get very good (maybe not perfect) results using a flat acrylic surface instead, specifically a CD. I have a stack of unused CD-RW disks for this. It is nice to be able to discard used ones often. I have a set of diamond pastes that goes to 200,000 but I cannot see any effect past 50,000 grit, even under a microscope. Abrasive film works well too and I find it convenient to get the non-stick kind, cut out small pieces, hold them in place with fingers or scotch tape, and -- again -- discard used ones often. Abrasive film is great for scratch removal; for polishing, yes, it can polish very nicely to a very high grit, but it rounds the corners a tiny bit, which is an issue especially with screw heads. The CDs are better in this regard (but I suspect zinc might be even better, and I'd like to get a chunk at some point). And I just finished making a tripod last night (ok, more like early this morning) which can hold 8mm lathe collets (with screws and such in them) and can't wait to try it out! My BIG problem is that, no matter what I do, tiny bits of dust (or maybe previous abrasive, or maybe incorrectly sized particles in higher-grit abrasive) sometimes remain and make tiny new scratches. It seems from the video that Kalle might have a couple of those too. This seems more common with the film than with diamond paste. So I have to either ignore them, or go back a grit or two and re-polish. Does anyone have any advice on that? With tin / zinc plates, do you have separate ones for each grit? Very best regards and thank you for the video!

[@bfx8185]

definitely you need clear room and properly clean the part between the stages.

[@quaarjet]

I have the same problem but use a steel plate with diamente extra fine powder mixed with 3 in 1 oil. Maybe i need to try the olive oil?

[@ppod-]

@@quaarjet My intuition is that oil is not important here (but I am not sure). I was wondering why zinc/tin is recommended instead of regular steel, like you are using. I would very much appreciate if someone knowledgeable on this point would comment. (I have some guesses: so that diamond gets embedded in this softer metal making it abrasive? or, same thing but to avoid embedding it in the part being polished, so that it does not erode nearby parts (not important for screw heads)? or, so that steel does not scratch the part being polished? or, so that minor irregularities in the softer metal get smoother out while polishing a part made of harder metal?)

[@boydsargeant7496]

Lovely job Kalle. Is it called a tripod, or does it have another name?

[@boydsargeant7496]

Yes please more content on black polishing!

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

asseton works good against cats too :)

[@MichaelMitchell-vk9lk]

Great job but saying black polish is now considered a raciest term so prepare to be cancelled

[@AmandaGelien-gd8kd]

if only the watchmaker sees the flaw it is an expensive job so I am assuming this was an owner request ???? In my neck of the woods less than 5% wound pay for that service . nice work if you can get it !