I have a Swiss Army Excursion watch with a rubber band that needs to be replaced.
I have the replacement band sitting on my desk, but I can’t figure out how to get the old one off. There are four holes on the watch, two on each side, with what look like little pins in them, and I had assumed I could just stick another pin into the holes and tap until they popped out.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had any luck. Is there some special trick to this, like a hidden latch somewhere? Do I need special tools? Or do I just need to tap harder?
The pins that hold watchbands on are usually spring loaded. You can get a special tool to remove them, or use a tiny screwdriver to compress the spring by prying between the band and the watchcase. Or you could take the watch to the store you bought the band at, and ask them to install it.
Put the new pin in the half of the band you are doing first. (Make sure you do them correctly, by the way. Pain in the ass doing them and finding out you put them in backwards.)
Then you take the band and maneuver one end of the pin into the appropriate hole. Now take a very thin knife, and put the point on the end of the pin, pressing it into the socket at the opposite end until the edge of the band and the point of the pin are both against the knife. Slide it into proper position against the opposite side of the watch, and then pull out the knife. You might need to be sure the pin is engaged, before letting the band slide around much.
Take it from someone who has tinkered with watch bands, when you start pushing the little spring things, they can easily pop off and vanish somewhere. You might want to do all of this tinkering inside of a clear plastic bag so that you won’t end up crawling on the floor looking for loose parts! Actually, my better suggestion is to just have the jeweler or watch repairer replace the band for you. It won’t cost you that much and you avoid the aggravation.
I think I’ve determined that there’s no mechanism that keeps the band in place, just two sets of two pins each - apparently, one is hollow and locks the other in place. So, just tapping the pins with a bit more force should do it.
However, I don’t have the right tools to do this (paper clips are too flimsy), so it will have to wait.
It’s sort of moot anyway, because this afternoon I bought a watch with a metal bracelet. This is the fifth time I’ve had a rubber watch band break on me in the past two years, and I decided enough was enough.
I’ll fix the old one and sell it on eBay or something.
I have a watch with a rubber wristband. When the battery went dead, I found that I couldn’t get the back of the watch off without removing at least one side of the band. It defeated every effort to remove it, and I’ve been replacing watchbands for about 50 years. Off to the jeweler.
