blog 61

Okay I’m bored about talking about watch bands and clasps so this blog is going to be about the basic anatomy of a watch. The watch bezel is the circular piece that secures the crystal to the case. Some watch have rotating bezels that can be either multi, or uni-directional. These rotating bezels are generally used to time things such as lap times, or for divers, elapsed time submerged. Some bezels are smooth where others are engraved with numbers. The next part of the watch it’s the crystal. The crystal is the transparent piece that protects the face of the watch. Crystals are generally made up of plastic, sometimes called acrylic glass, mineral glass, or sapphire crystal. Plastic is the least expensive and scratches easily but generally does not crack or shatter which makes plastic a good choice for cheap, or children’s watches. Mineral glass starts out as normal glass but is then treated with either chemicals or heat. This hardens the mineral glass, which makes it more scratch resistant, but this also makes the glass more brittle and prone to chipping and cracking. Sapphire crystals are the most expensive type of crystal but they are extremely durable. Sapphire crystals are made of a synthetic compound with identical properties to natural sapphire. These crystals are so hard that they can only be scratched by diamonds and are more crack resistant than plastic crystals and more scratch resistant than mineral glass which makes it the perfect material for a watch crystal. Because sapphire crystals are more expensive than mineral glass or plastic they are generally not found on less expensive watches.