Bell and Ross 123 Crystal replacement?

[daveos]

Just got a B&R 123 from Intime, and have somehow (I think a small person in my house dropped it) broken the watch crystal. Any ideas how I would go about replacing this?

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[$$Bone$$]

Have you tried contacting any TD's? They may be able to get one from the factory. If you don't need sapphire, it would probably be easy enough to replace it with an acrylic crystal, which any watchmaker could source.

 

[Nanook65]

I would agree that you might be able to contact a TD, however unless you are buying another watch that is going to be expensive shipping and a long wait for a crystal. You just need to find the right size crystal and then replace it. Just about anyone can do this as it is not difficult at all if you have a crystal press. Do you have a calipers? If you don't have a calipers and a crystal press just find a local watch repair shop. Most of them will do it.

 

[$$Bone$$]

I got one of these recently, and the crystal didn't just crack, it exploded. I didn't even bump it on anything. I was walking into work, I hear a loud pop, look down, at there are bits of glass on the floor and my watch has a jagged edge where the crystal once was.

I cut the bottom off of a paper cup, and taped it so that it protected the dial until I could get it home. I took the watch apart, removed the rest of the glass, and measured the opening, its about 37mm. I had a sterkreuz HH plexi in 37mm from an old project, so I popped that it. Unfortunately, its not quite tight enough to be water proof, so Ive ordered a few more in 37.2mm to try out.

I thought about getting another sapphire or mineral crystal, but I'm not sure how tall the inner dome would need to be. The original crystal is not a conventional shape, and I have never seen one like it sold by any of the parts suppliers I use.

The good thing is that the plexi looks really nice in this watch, and even though its not gen-spec, I think it fits the spirit of the piece more.

 

[$$Bone$$]

Here are a few pics with the plexi installed.

It got a few scratches within a few hours of wearing it, but that's part of the deal with acrylic.

 

[fromo1946]

Where did you find your plexi crystal? I need one for mine, it exploded just sitting on my desk. You can contact me at [email protected] I really need to get it replaced, by the way your photos didn’t come through.
thanks,
Frank Romo

 

[daveos]

Hi, I contacted and arranged tihs via Puretime. Cheers.

 

[GingerBubba]

Notorious exploders. NCRich has your back:
https://www.rwg.bz/board/index.php?/topic/143340-crystal-explosion-on-the-br-123/