STRAP SWAP: Beware of Metal Tubes in Your Watch Bands

At the risk of sounding like a philistine, I am going to share a hair-raising story of how I had to take a hacksaw to the watchband of a newly traded Tudor Heritage Black Bay watch. This tale is not for the squeamish so look away now if you have to…. you have been warned.

For a long time, I had wanted a Tudor Heritage Black Bay with the red bezel. This popular watch got so many things right by balancing modern watchmaking quality with vintage design cues. Imagine my surprise when a watch collecting buddy told me that he “just happened to acquire one” from a client as a payback for a job/favor. Now, I would finally get to handle the watch that I had only seen in photos so I was pretty excited. The funny thing was that my pal was not as enamored with the watch as I was. I thought he was crazy, but this only proves that everyone has different tastes in watches.

The Tudor Heritage Black Bay is a beautiful watch

Then he told me that he might sell it to pay some bills. My mind started to run the numbers and scheme. If I sold off a bunch of my watches, I would be able to afford to buy the watch from him. The bad news was that I knew the street value of the watch, which was not an amount that I could quickly generate. He needed the money and I did not have much disposable cash so like any good pal would do, I decided to help him sell it for top dollar on eBay and WatchYouSeek.

During the next couple of weeks, the watch did not sell. We were getting some low-ball offers and not much else. Admittedly, the Tudor Heritage Black Bay was not perfect by most watch selling standards. It did not have all the links in the bracelet, and it did not have the box and papers. It also had the older ETA 2824 movement instead of the in-house Tudor movement that appeared in later versions of the watch. These factors can ding the value of a watch in buyer’s eyes, but I did not really care about those things since I dreamed of wearing it on a nice vintage leather strap. I also preferred the ETA movement because any competent watchmaker can service it.

One night during our regular watch nerd session*, a minor miracle happened. My pal said that he had changed his mind and might be interested in trading the watch instead of selling it outright. This put me back in the game because I had more watches than money, plus he was actually interested in two of my watches (seen below). As luck would have it, I was going to sell them anyway. Talk about the stars aligning!

We worked out a deal that made both of us happy. He got a Victorinox Swiss Army Airboss Mach 8, a Seiko Sun 019 Kinetic GMT, a pile of valuable watch bands and some cash. I went home with my new beautiful red-bezel Tudor Black Bay Heritage. Even today it is a cornerstone of my watch collection. It represents the first “big name” luxury brand for me to acquire, no offense to Victorinox, Fortis or Oris (I’m not counting a quartz Longines or broken Baume & Mercier). I am deeply smitten by the vintage charms of that Tudor Heritage Black Bay. Little did I know that the watch had a dark secret.

Because the Black Bay’s bracelet was a bit too small for my wrist, I kept it on the cheap leather strap my buddy had installed on it. For an eBay-special, it did not look half bad, but it lacked the elegance that I thought the watch deserved. It looked a little too rugged and had no taper in the strap like a vintage watch band should. Also, I like to experiment by trying different straps on a watch band. These Strap Swaps can fundamentally change the look of a watch, and I am often not happy until I find the perfect combination of fit and color to complement the watch.

The Tudor Heritage Black Bay had a too-wide aftermarket leather band on it that hid a secret

Normally, I can get a watch band off in seconds, but it soon became clear that the ones on the Tudor Black Bay Heritage were not going to come off easily. Closer examination revealed the problem and I might have let a curse word or two slip out as I realized that the watchbands were practically locked onto the watch. They could not be removed using any of my spring bar tools. This was going to be a headache! The exact problem was that the watch bands that my buddy had put on the watch had metal sleeves hidden in the lug-ends, and they were the exact same size as the lugs. If you cannot insert a tool into the area between a spring bar end and the lugs, then there is little chance of compressing the spring bar. No compression means no removal… at least not using traditional methods.

Metal sleeves in watch band

If you did not know, some watchband makers add a structural element to the lug-ends of their straps. All leather can stretch so the metal sleeve protects the leather from getting pulled by the screw-bar because the bar exerts force against the metal sleeve and not the leather itself. For the watch band in question, hollow metal sleeve tubes were inserted into the lug-end tunnel to reinforce it. Because these sleeves are the same width as the watch band and the same diameter of the hole, they can often be difficult to see. You can tell by attempting the fold the lug-end in half like a “U” shape. If you cannot bend it, then you might have a metal sleeve hiding in there. Do not attempt to install these on watches without drilled lugs or you could lock the watch strap to the watch.

I suspect that these metal sleeves are meant to work on watches with drilled lugs, which allow the wearer to remove the spring bar by inserting a pin tool into a hole on the side of a case. Screw-in spring bars are removed by turning screws on the lugs of a watch. In both instances, the bars holding the watch band in place can be accessed “from the outside” of the lug. This is important because the metal watch band sleeve fits flush against the lug walls and can block access to the ends of the spring bars. It is the ends of the spring bars that have to be compressed to remove the watch band. If you cannot compress the spring bar… it’s not moving. Please note that there is a good chance that the metal lug-end sleeve will not be usable with screw-in spring bars which can be fatter than regular spring bars. They might not fit into the sleeve.

I tried to remove the watch bands for a couple of hours, but the metal sleeves prevented me from even getting my finest spring bar fork into the position. I was taking great care not to add unwanted scratches on the watch. It was a beautiful specimen and I wanted to keep it that way. Unfortunately, I knew that drastic measures might have to be taken or, I might be forever stuck with that watch band… not a favorable outlook for a serial strap swapper.

This generic band had to go!

Not being a watch smith, I was not sure what to do. I knew that I did not want to damage the watch’s great looks or automatic movement inside by doing something stupid like using a chisel and a hammer to cut the spring bar and sleeve in half. Banging a watch is rarely a good idea. I also did not want to pull the watch band hoping that the pin and sleeve would fail. I was afraid that this might damage the small drilled holes that the spring bar fits into.

The solution that I decided to try was to cut the spring bar and sleeve in half. I would have to cut through the leather watch band, but that could easily be replaced. A Dremel with a cutting disc seemed like an obvious choice, but hand-holding a Dremel that wants to “walk” in the direction of the spinning disc gave me nightmares. I foresaw it accidentally leaving a giant gash on the watch if I slipped.

I’m gonna saw right here… Photo: Jenny Hughes

Instead, I went with a slower low-tech solution involving an old-fashioned hacksaw with a fine-tooth metal-cutting blade. Instead of securing the watch in place with a vice, which might have scratched it, I tried a different technique. I found that it was easier to hold the saw between my knees and bring the watch to it. It seems counter-intuitive, but a small watch is easier to hold than a long saw if you do not have a workshop. I imagined that I was a Civil War surgeon as I made the first cut.

Slowly but surely, I chipped away at the spring bar and metal sleeve. Photo: Jenny Hughes

My plan was to fold the leather watch band back and attempt to saw the metal lug tube and spring bar in half.  It felt odd putting such a nice watch so close to something so destructive. The first few pulls of the watch against the sawblade made me nervous, but I could tell it was working by the narrow slit that appeared in the leather watch band.

After a few nerve-wracking moments, I sawed through the first side. Photo: Jenny Hughes

Soon, I could tell that the saw blade was biting into the metal sleeve. It took longer than you might think because I had to saw through a metal sleeve and a spring bar using very light pressure. I did not want to go too far and scratch the watch.

These tiny metal pieces put up a good fight. They are tough!

I never got all the way through the metal sleeve and spring bar. It was not necessary because the watch band slid off when I was about 3/4 of the way through. This is because the spring bar and sleeve bent into a shallow “V” shape giving the spring bar’s ends enough room to pop out of the lug holes. Once I knew how to do one side, the other side went faster.

Currently, the Tudor Black Bay is wearing a calf leather strap from Germany

The Tudor Heritage Black Bay survived unscathed and now it wears a beautiful tan leather strap. I also learned a valuable lesson about watch bands. Before you install them, check to see if they have a metal sleeve. You should be able to see a hint of metal if you look into the strap hole. The sleeves are just inserted so you can take a small screwdriver or toothpick to push it out. Only use them for watches that are designed to use them, like the ones with drilled lugs… or you soon may be taking a hacksaw to your favorite watch. I never want to do that again!

Even abused watch bands deserve a second chance.

I guess I am a packrat because I did not throw away the watch band with the slice through the lug-ends. Instead, I put it on my Steinhart Ocean One Bronze where the fatter straight watch band looked more appropriate. Nothing goes to waste and I have a personal memento of the time I hacksawed a Tudor Heritage Black Bay and got away with it.

*Watch Nerd Session – getting together with good friends to stare at and discuss watches. It may involve alcohol, losing track of time or coming home with a different set of watches than you left with.