After 15 years of daily wear, even a great Rolex will no longer look the way it once did. Still, some of that wear can absolutely be corrected.

Can it simply be polished? Of course not. Polishing means removing metal all the way down to the deepest scratch. Street “shoe repair shops” do exactly that, but this is not the proper approach. Where there are deep dents and missing metal, we rebuild the surface by adding metal with laser welding.

After the laser welding, the case is polished while carefully preserving its original planes and edges. Keeping surfaces flat is the key, it is very important not to overpolish the item. Rolex 904 stainless steel is especially hard, and careful polishing takes a great deal of time. Once the polishing is complete, the brushing finish is restored.

Lugs restoration and polishing

All lugs were heavily scratched, but one corner of the case lug had a really deep dent. First, metal was added up using laser welding. Then the original shape was rebuilt, the surface was polished, and the brushed finish was restored keeping its original dimensions.

See the same lug from the back side:

The other side of the case had its share of scratches as well, along with rounded lug corners.

Looks better now?

Bracelet restoration

The bracelet required a separate restoration project of its own. The links had to be taken apart so that each one could be polished individually, allowing the original surfaces to be restored without overpolishing. In addition, the steel and gold components require different polishing paste and different polishing wheel speeds – they cannot be polished together at the same time.

Looks definitely better…

Clasp before and after. Deepest pits and scratches had to be filled by laser welding with 18k gold wire.

And finally, here is the full result after restoration.

The owner originally intended to sell the watch, but after the restoration he changed his mind. With a new life breathed into it, it is now back on his wrist.