HOW TO ADJUST YOUR WATCH BAND

Once you’ve bought your watch, the very first thing that tends to happen (after small celebrations and if you're lucky champagne) is the AD assistant will quickly have a look at your wrist size before disappearing behind closed doors. After only a few moments they reappear with your brand new watch fitting your wrist like a glove. Over the course of a day, month and year, your wrist can expand and shrink depending on many factors and sometimes that means you need to adjust your watch bracelet or strap. We’re going to help you out and show you how you can adjust the different types of watch bracelets and straps so you’ll be able to do it yourself.

Fermoir Oysterlock

Source : Bobs Watches

First method to adjust your strap

When it comes to watch bracelets made from some type of metal, there tends to only be two types of adjustment methods for the links. You may have heard the term screws and pins when people talk about adjusting the links. To hold the links together on your bracelet, a thin small metal bar is used to insure that your links stay solid and well linked together. However, despite the metal bar system holding the links together remaining the same over all the different bracelets, the way the metal bars are secured differ. There are many arguments on both sides saying one option is better and more secure but in the end, they are just two different systems.

One thing to check before sizing your bracelet by adding or removing links is what type of clasp your watch bracelet has, some clasp are able to extend or shorten the bracelet length on the go. For example the submariner gridlock system allows you to adjust the bracelet length by 20mm so you may not even need to change any links. However, for the most part, clasp will either offer you a few millimetres pof adjustment or none at all so knowing how to remove links is always a useful skill.

Steel watch strap

Source : Bobs Watches

change Steel watch strap

Source : Orion Watches

If we start with screws, as you may have already guessed, they require a small flat head screwdriver to twist the screw in or out to secure the ink in place. Screws tend to be a little easier out of the two options to adjust. First you need to hold your metal bracelet on its side, you can either hold it in your hand or in a small bracelet securing device. Then you need to select the right size screwdriver and gently unscrew your link bar. Once it's out your bracelet will now come apart in two pieces, now you can either add or remove another link by unscrewing the next link. To connect the two links together simply screw the metal bar back in but make sure not to screw it in as tight as you possibly can otherwise you may damage either the thread on either the link or screw. 

Second method to adjust your strap

The second type of metal bar fastening system you have are called pins and these are small metal pins that you need to hammer in and out of the links. Similar to the screws, you need to hold the bracelet on its side, however it is much safer and more secure to use a bracelet holder. This will give your bracelet much more stability and make hitting the pins out much easier and less likely to scratch your watch during the process.

change Steel watch strap

Source : Beth Tee

Just like with the crews, once you’ve hit the pin out, you can then separate the links to either add another one in to enlarge your bracelet or remove another pin to take out a link. Once you’ve removed all the necessary pins and got the bracelet the right size you can slide the pin into the link as far as you can push it and then gently tap the pin in using a small hammer. Unlike trying to hit a nail into wood, make very small taps because you don’t want to hit it so hard that the hammer hits the side of the link and leaves a scratch or dent! 

butterfly clasp

Source : B and R Bands

If your watch is on a leather, rubber or nato strap then you have got the easiest job of them all when it comes to adjusting, just like the email bracelets there tends to be only two ways to do this and this is dependent on your clasp. You’ve got your traditional tang buckle/pin buckle which are really easy to adjust. Much like a leather belt, all you have to do is thread the strap through the buckle until the strap fits your wrist perfectly and gently push the pin into the hole.


Now your strap is perfectly sized and you can easily unbuckle the strap to re adjust if you need to. The second one is a butterfly clasp, meaning you fold over teo piece of metal on the clasp in order to secure it shut. They aren't much more difficult to adjust, the only difference is you have to push both sides of the leather through and secure them down using the clasp fastening system. Then you can open and close the clasp onto your wrist like a metal bracelet.

There you have it, whether you have a metal bracelet with screw or pin metal bars or leather, rubber or a nato strap, you now know how to adjust the length of your strap. Here at ZEALANDE we use a 316L tang buckle designed to easily and securely adjust the length of your rubber strap so you can get a perfect fit to your wrist. Whether you’re looking to change the look or feel of your watch, you can select the perfect rubber strap colour and size for your watch so head over to our website to select yours today!


Semaster Diver 300 M 42 MM Black ceramic

Source : ZEALANDE