The Breitling Watch Source Forums

So after much hemming-and-hawing, back-and-forth, etc... Breitling has indicated that they will not polish a Chronomat bezel at the factory. They also indicated to my AD that if an independent jeweler (or AD) were to polish the bezel, that it may affect the factory warranty as it would be deemed an 'aftermarket modification'.

They also gave him a line about the bezel being 'too intricate' to polish, which I don't believe as the Crosswind and Crosswind Special LE models have what amounts to the same bezel design and Breitling somehow managed to brighten that up. Plus, they are somehow able to polish the Blackbird so something just does not make sense.

I guess one way to look at this is Breitling just saved me a whole bunch of money. The stock brushed bezels just look.....dead to my eyes.

The bezel is easy to remove, by removing the screws around the perimeter of the bezel, this also removes the rider tabs. Don't lose the screws. Now go on eBay and buy some sunshine cloths, and spend an hour or two carefully rubbing your brushed bezel to a mirror finish. $20 and and hour or two of your time should be enough. I suggest laying the sunshine cloth on a flat surface, table etc, and laying the bezel face down and rubbing the bezel on the cloth.

Good luck,
M

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I would loosen them rather than completely removing the screws. No need to take them right out and harder to lose that way!

Great tip. My concern is that if you are polishing the bezel, the screws may back out and become lost while you are polishing. Maybe loosen, remove bezel, then tighten the screws again before polishing? That would work.

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My inclination would be to remove them very carefully and set them aside. Otherwise you won't be able to polish underneath and around them 100% and you have a seam.

The edge of the bezel where the screws are is already polished so theoretically you don't need to poish that area, only the top surface. Therefore the screws could stay in. Either way will work as long as you are careful with teh screws and keep track of them.

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