There is a moment every jewellery owner dreads. The engagement ring that suddenly spins loose on a cold finger. The pearl necklace that snaps mid-clasp, scattering across the floor. The watch that was running perfectly on Friday and stone dead by Monday. Jewellery and watches are built to be worn, and wear takes its toll — but almost nothing is beyond saving in the hands of the right craftsperson.
The trouble is knowing what you actually need, what a fair job looks like, and who to trust with a piece that may be irreplaceable in sentiment even if it is insured in value. This guide walks through the most common jewellery and watch repairs — what they involve, when you need them, and what to watch out for — with links to jewellers and specialists listed here on Carat & Craft who can help.
1. Ring Resizing
Ring resizing is the single most requested repair in any jewellery workshop, and for good reason: fingers change. Weight fluctuates, knuckles thicken with age, and rings are inherited by hands they were never made for. Sizing down involves cutting a section from the band and soldering it seamlessly back together; sizing up means stretching the band slightly or, more often, inserting a matched piece of precious metal.
A good resize should be invisible. The join is soldered, filed, polished and, on white gold, usually re-rhodium-plated so the whole ring looks uniform. Not every ring can be resized easily — eternity bands with stones all the way round, tension settings, and some patterned or engraved bands need specialist judgement before anyone takes a saw to them.
Edward Fleming Jewellery in Bloomsbury, London specialises in ring resizing alongside its bespoke work, and national retailers such as Goldsmiths and Chisholm Hunter offer resizing through their store networks across the UK.
2. Claw Re-Tipping
The claws (or prongs) holding your diamond in place are tiny — often less than a millimetre of metal — and they take a beating. Every knock against a door frame, every dive into a handbag, wears them down. Eventually a claw becomes thin, snags on knitwear, or snaps entirely, and the stone it was holding is one bad day from disappearing down a drain.
Re-tipping rebuilds the worn tip of each claw with fresh precious metal, restoring the secure grip over the stone. It is delicate work: heat must be applied close to a gemstone that may not tolerate it, which is why diamonds are straightforward but emeralds, opals and pearls demand real skill or stone removal first. Have your claws checked roughly once a year — a jeweller’s loupe will spot trouble long before you do.
Independent workshops such as Edward Fleming Jewellery and long-established family jewellers like Pleasance & Harper in Hereford handle re-tipping and setting work regularly.
3. Pearl Re-Stringing
Pearls are organic, and so is the silk thread traditionally used to string them. Silk stretches, absorbs skin oils, perfume and hairspray, and gradually weakens. The general advice is to have a frequently worn strand restrung every one to two years — and immediately if you can see gaps between pearls and knots, or if the thread looks discoloured or fuzzy.
Proper re-stringing is done with a knot between every pearl. The knots do two jobs: they stop the pearls grinding against each other, and if the strand ever breaks, you lose one pearl instead of forty. Cheap re-stringing without knots is a false economy on any pearls of value. It is also the perfect moment to have the clasp checked or upgraded.
Heritage jewellers with in-house workshop connections, such as Heming — trading in London since 1745 — and traditional county jewellers like Pleasance & Harper, are exactly the kind of firms to trust with a treasured strand.
4. Stone Replacement and Tightening
Lost a stone? It happens more often than people admit, and it is rarely the end of the piece. A jeweller can source a replacement matched for size, cut, colour and clarity — whether that is a melee diamond the size of a pinhead or a centre stone — and set it so the repair is undetectable. For coloured gemstones, matching is an art in itself: sapphires alone come in an enormous range of hues, and a good gemmologist earns their keep here.
Just as important is prevention. A rattling or clicking stone is a warning sign; a quick tighten of the setting costs little, while a lost stone costs a great deal. Most jewellers will check and tighten settings as part of a routine clean.
Gemstone-led jewellers such as Serena Ansell, a GIA Graduate Gemologist based in London, are well placed to advise on matching and replacing coloured stones, while retail chains like Chisholm Hunter handle everyday setting checks and repairs.
5. Chain, Clasp and Solder Repairs
Broken chains are the bread and butter of the repair bench. A snapped link, a stretched jump ring, a bracelet pulled once too hard — most are quick soldering jobs, invisible once polished. Clasps deserve special mention: a worn lobster clasp or a bolt ring that no longer springs shut properly is the most common reason necklaces and bracelets are lost. Replacing a tired clasp is cheap insurance.
Modern workshops increasingly use laser welders for this work, which allows repairs incredibly close to heat-sensitive stones and on tricky metals like platinum and titanium without disturbing the surrounding piece.
High-street and independent jewellers alike offer chain and clasp repairs — try a local independent such as F.J Zelley in Bishop’s Stortford, or a national name like Goldsmiths with branches across the country.
6. Rhodium Plating and Gold Plating
If your white gold ring has developed a faintly yellow tinge, nothing is wrong with it — that is simply the rhodium plating wearing through. White gold is naturally a warm, slightly yellow-grey metal; the bright mirror-white finish you bought is a microscopically thin layer of rhodium, a platinum-group metal, electroplated over the surface. Depending on wear, it lasts one to three years before it needs refreshing.
Re-plating involves a thorough clean and polish, then a fresh rhodium bath, and the transformation is dramatic — rings come back looking newly made. The same electroplating techniques can apply yellow or rose gold finishes to refresh gold-plated pieces, or change the look of a piece entirely.
Plating is a core service at Edward Fleming Jewellery, whose Bloomsbury workshop offers both rhodium and gold plating alongside resizing — a natural pairing, since a resized white gold ring should always be re-plated as the final step.
7. Polishing and Refinishing
Years of daily wear leave thousands of micro-scratches that dull even the hardest metals. Professional polishing removes a whisper-thin layer of metal to restore the original lustre, while refinishing can reinstate satin, brushed, hammered or matte textures that home polishing cloths would destroy.
A word of caution: polishing removes metal, so it should be done judiciously — perhaps once every year or two, not monthly. And textured or engraved pieces need a specialist’s hand. The famous fabric-like engraved finishes of a house such as Buccellati are a good example of surfaces that an inexperienced polisher could ruin in seconds; work like that should only ever go back to craftspeople who understand it.
For routine polishing and refinishing, most full-service jewellers on the directory — from Goldsmiths to independents like F.J Zelley — can help.
8. Antique Restoration and Remodelling
Antique and inherited jewellery sits in a category of its own. Restoration is about sympathetic conservation: stabilising old settings, replacing period-appropriate stones, repairing enamel and preserving patina rather than polishing history away. Get it wrong and you can halve a piece’s value; get it right and you extend its life by another century.
Remodelling takes the opposite approach — transforming pieces you have inherited but will never wear into something you will. Grandmother’s stones in a new setting, three unworn rings combined into one, a brooch reborn as a pendant. It is one of the most emotionally rewarding services a jeweller offers.
For antique expertise, few names carry more weight than Wartski, the celebrated London specialists in antique jewellery and works of art, and Garrard, the world’s oldest jewellery house, whose workshops have cared for heritage pieces — including the Crown Jewels — for nearly three centuries. For creative remodelling, designers such as Theo Fennell and Stephen Webster bring serious design flair to reimagining old stones.
9. Engraving and Engraving Restoration
Hand engraving — initials inside a wedding band, a crest on a signet ring, a dedication on a watch case back — personalises a piece like nothing else. Over decades, though, engraving wears shallow and illegible. A skilled hand engraver can re-cut faded lettering, deepen worn crests, or add new inscriptions in a style that matches the original.
Signet ring seal engraving in particular is a dying art practised by a small number of British craftspeople, so if you have a family crest to restore, seek out a house with genuine engraving heritage. Garrard and Heming both belong to the tradition of London goldsmithing where such skills were nurtured, and traditional jewellers like Pleasance & Harper can arrange engraving work of all kinds.
10. Watch Battery Replacement and Resealing
The humble battery change is where most people’s watch repair experience begins — and where a surprising amount can go wrong. A quartz watch battery typically lasts two to three years, but the change itself matters as much as the battery: the case back must be opened without scarring, the correct battery fitted, and, crucially, the gaskets checked and the case resealed. On any watch with water resistance, ask for a reseal and pressure test at the same time — a battery change without one can quietly turn a divers’ watch into a fair-weather friend.
Watch counters at national retailers such as Goldsmiths and Chisholm Hunter handle battery changes daily, with proper resealing available for water-resistant models.
11. Watch Movement Servicing
A mechanical watch is a tiny engine running 24 hours a day, and like any engine it needs servicing. Over time, lubricants dry out, parts wear, and timekeeping drifts. A full service involves completely disassembling the movement, ultrasonically cleaning every component, replacing worn parts, re-lubricating, reassembling, regulating the timekeeping and pressure-testing the case. Done properly it takes weeks, not days — and it is the difference between a watch that lasts a lifetime and one that grinds itself to pieces.
Most manufacturers recommend a full service every four to seven years. For luxury brands, manufacturer servicing preserves warranty and provenance: Cartier, for instance, services its own watches through its boutiques and care programme. Authorised retailers such as Goldsmiths can also arrange manufacturer-approved servicing for the brands they carry.
12. Watch Straps, Bracelets and Case Refinishing
Not every watch problem lives inside the case. Leather straps wear out and should be replaced every year or two of regular wear; metal bracelets stretch, lose pins and need links added or removed as wrists change. Bracelet adjustment is a quick job any decent watch counter can do while you wait, and a fresh strap is the cheapest way to make an old watch feel new.
Case and bracelet refinishing goes further — restoring brushed and polished surfaces to factory-fresh condition. As with jewellery polishing, restraint matters: over-polishing softens the crisp edges collectors prize, so on valuable or vintage watches, less is more.
Watch specialists such as Time and Tide and the watch departments at Goldsmiths and Chisholm Hunter can help with straps, sizing and refinishing.
How to Choose a Repairer You Can Trust
A few principles hold across every repair on this list. Ask questions before you hand anything over: What exactly will be done? Is the work carried out in-house or sent away? What is the turnaround and the cost, in writing? Any reputable jeweller welcomes these questions. Check that valuable pieces are insured while in the workshop’s care, and photograph your jewellery before you leave it anywhere — a sensible habit, not an insult.
Finally, match the repairer to the piece. A high-street chain is perfect for a battery change or a bracelet adjustment; a hundred-year-old pearl sautoir or a Victorian mourning ring deserves a specialist. That is precisely what this directory is for.
Browse the full Carat & Craft jewellers directory to find a jeweller or watch specialist near you — and if you are in the trade and offer repair services, claim your free listing so customers can find you.