Refurbishing and Reconditioning a Swiss Watch Buckle

Cartier Watch Buckle Repair and Refurbishing

Keeping the originality of every single watch part not only helps a watch maintain its elegance but also its value, but what happens when your original bracelet and buckle wears out and looks this?

First, we found a new Cartier strap for this watch and exchanged it for the old worn out one it previous had on, but that's the easiest part. Now we need to restore the original buckle back to a like new condition. As you see in the before pictures below, the Cartier gold buckle has a great deal of wear, dirt, and tarnished. It is up to our jewelers experience to fully restore its gold by a process called electroplating. Here is how its done.

1. Tang buckle before the process begins

   

2. Our jeweler removes the old gold plating taking it back to its rough condition.

3. After a deep cleaning the buckle and tongue are nickel plated using a special nickel solution. A combination of nickel plating fluid and an electrical current allows the plating to attach to the metal surface of the buckle.

   

4. Our jeweler allows the piece to dry. It is rinsed with distilled water and steam dried.

5. Now using a gold plating solution and again an electrical current the jeweler submerges the pieces. During this step the nickel plated buckle will be plated with gold.

6. Once this last process is completed the buckle is installed onto the new strap and the watch is ready to go!

---

---