View Single Post
Old 18 November 2008, 07:20 AM   #27
sbakar
"TRF" Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: North Vancouver
Posts: 650
Quote:
Originally Posted by CanuckRolex View Post
Sorry, but you are wrong here. As I am a practicing geologist, having a good knowledge of the moh's scale of hardness is key for mineral identification.

There is in no way a possibility that a soft plastic toothbrush bristle will scratch a gold or any metal surface. Now somthing that gets dislodged during the cleaning (a grain of sand) may get lodged in the bristles and therefore cause the scratches but even then only if you use excessive force, but saying the bristles scratch is nothing less than pure ignorant nonsense and the spreading of uninformed baseless opinion.

If that was the case, some of our synthetic sweaters that are essentially made from a thin form of threaded plastic should scratch the heck out of our watches in no time which again, is nonsense.

Using a soft tothbrush is perfectly safe, using a mild detergent is safe and using water and detergent and a soft toothbrush used very lightly is perfectly safe. You are 100 times as likely to scrath a watch dry buffing it with a polishing cloth than even using water, soap and a TB.

Anyone waving the red flag saying that this is unsafe for a watch with the durability and materials used in a Rolex is being overly neurotic and making up stories to back up pure ignorance and the lack of basic knowledge of the fundementals of metals.
Excellent; a practicing geologist! Then please answer me this with your wisdom: how can glass (5.5 Mohs) scratch sapphire (9 Mohs)? How can we cut (or even scratch) diamonds if two pieces of diamond both have hardness 10 Mohs? The answer is that it is all relative. Mohs scale is relative in that a harder material will experience less wear than a softer one. Remember, there is NO material that is 'scratchproof'.

Also, if you are confident about your knowledge of Mohs scale, let's see a picture of a sapphire crystal being rubbed with garnet paper (pyrope, for e.g., that has a hardness 7.5 Mohs). By your assertion, there should be no scratching whatsoever. However, I bet you will see scratches.

I would also suggest not making allegations that I have bolded in your quote.

SNB
sbakar is offline   Reply With Quote