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Shoulderless spring bars: standard. Really?

4K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  Malakim 
#1 ·
One more thing about the SST12 I took delivery of recently... It had slipped my mind until the weekend, when I came across a pair of bent spring bars...

The watch came with shoulderless spring bars. Since the SST12 doesn't have drilled lugs, to change the strap you have to break the spring bars, being careful not to scratch the case and to minimise the damage on the strap.

Now, I wouldn't mind if they built the watch with regular bars and included a set of shoulderless bars for me to install at my discretion, but shipping a watch without drilled lugs on shoulderless bars is a mistake, imo.


Cheers - Jeff C
 
#4 ·
Hey Jeff,

yeah, I understood what you meant. My point was that a sharp edge and a bit of pressure will bite into the bar and allow you to compress it. Let me put it this way, I've never had to break a shoulder-less springbar to remove it. On the other hand I've always had a little bit of room to get the tool in there, but if the barrel of the springbar is the exact width of the lugs then that's another matter. Is that what Glycine had used?
 
#5 ·
Well, maybe. There was about 1 mm of space available. You could get the tool onto the pin end but I couldn't get enough traction on it to move it enough to get out of the lug hole, or at least far enough out of the lug hole to release.

I worked on it for about 5 minutes with the tool without any luck.

Regardless, it's still not the best choice of spring bar as standard issue.

Jeff
 
#6 ·
Regardless, it's still not the best choice of spring bar as standard issue.
Agreed. It is during situations like this that you realize that manufacturers often don't have WIS buyers in mind. After all, the average watch buyer would never replace a strap unless it was worn out, and even then they would take it to a retailer to get it replaced.
 
#8 ·
I've helped a few friends buy watches who were very specific about the strap they wanted and had to explain to each that they should ignore the strap as it's the easiest thing to change later on (a bracelet being the exception because it's typically more expensive to buy one after the fact). I think manufacturers are missing out on healthy strap sales by not making and promoting a range of alternative straps for their watches that use quick release bars, which allow anyone to change a strap in seconds.
 
#9 ·
Only just picked up on this thread as I've also recently taken delivery of an SST12.

I ordered mine on mesh with a couple of extra leather straps but not yet alternated as I'm enjoying the mesh so much!

Anyway, mine definitely has the "normal" shouldered spring bars and also, with the mesh, plenty of room for the tool. I wonder if Jeff was just unlucky in that the watch assembler simply picked up whatever they had to hand? Or was I lucky :-s

Makes me appreciate the drilled lugs on my 1953 Vintage ...............
 
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