I bit on the beat-up $25 G-Shock deal I posted after Poshmark gave me a $1 shipping promo for signing up. I have long admired this module, and I figured if the bezel and strap were a waste I could swap bodies with my Tron square (
here) when I wanted to change things up. Plus I wanted to see just how hard it is to clean up a G.
Here was the original deal. I asked, and she said the crystal had no scratches. The white skid marks are paint or something stuck on the watch -- whatever happened, the G stood up better than its adversary:
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It arrived looking just like this. The inside of the strap was grimy from regular use (as expected from the photos). I googled around and read lots of suggestions for how to clean a G -- didn't find a consensus. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I didn't worry too much about it.
I removed the strap and bezel and scrubbed them with a tooth brush in dish soap & water. The white marks were tough. Experimenting a bit, I found that they came off best by scrubbing them with side of a toothpick in the soap & water:
I used the side of the soapy toothpick and scrubbed perpendicular to its grain. It worked fast, too. Funny.
Next I tried soaking and scrubbing these in an ammonia solution -- nothing gained by that.
Next I soaked and scrubbed these in a
strong bleach solution as recommended by konax. That worked a treat. The letters on the bezel brightened up (they were
bad) and the grime inside the strap (which is porous) actually cleared up. The strap is still worn, but the grime is (almost) gone (but there's no help for the keeper -- maybe I'll soak the strap some more). The shiny 'G-Lide' finish seems unaffected by this hours-long soak (some folks online warned against using bleach on G straps/bezels). After the bleach treatment I washed them with soap & water and gave them a good rinse.
I washed the spring bars and bezel screws in rubbing alcohol so that they would dry fast.
I'm surprised how well it turned out:
I hope I'm always this lucky with my experiments!