A simple one for you all. The wristband of my Casio watch broke. I would like to replace it. In most countries the jewelry shop will do this for you with a smile. Here I cannot even find a display full of plastic watchbands.
(I asked the young ladies at the mall jewelry store. They offered to FedEx the watch to their main office.)
So how do people living in modern America replace watchbands? This ought not to be tricky.
You order one on Amazon and replace it yourself. The manual for the watch model is helpful to make sure you get the size right, but the model number should be enough for an Amazon search.
Thank you. Let me look.
I’ve seen small watch repair shops, sometimes in kiosks in the mall or in one case, in a supermarket. I think a lot of their business is replacing watch batteries but they would probably be able to replace a watch band or to shorten one as well.
Agreed, a mall kiosk would be my first choice, but both our local malls are dying.
(By the way, there is a Little Old Lady at my senior citizens’ center who cracks open watches to replace batteries. She could not replace the wristband. Still you got to admire her entrepreneurial spirit.)
It isn’t tricky. You just need a glasses screwdriver to compress the little spring bar.
OK, the wristband and an installation tool will be delivered tomorrow. Thanks to you all.
Replacing a watchband is very doable on your own. Keep in mind the pin holding the band is spring loaded and might pop out when you take it off. Make sure your work area is clean enough that you can find the pin if it flies away.
If you want to have work like this done, take it to an independent shop. The chain stores pretty much just sell new jewelry. An independent shop will do things like change batteries, change watchbands, reset gemstones, and custom work. Yelp is a good resource for finding places that do on-site jewelry repair.
They make watchbands now that don’t require any sort of tool. At least some of the leather ones. Don’t know about the metal sort.
Lotta the plastic Casio watches dont’ have the traditional spring loaded pins any more. Instead it’s just a solid pin. Which is a continuous diameter a smaller diameter last ~1/8". You have to get a teeny tiny punch to drive the thin end out towards the fat end. That side of the watch body “wing” has a small hole to accept the punch and a larger hole on the other “wing” of the watch body to accept the larger pin. So put the punch in the small hole and drive the pin out the large hole. Then reverse the procedure to drive the pin small end first into the large hole and through the new band.
The place to look is youtube
Amazon, or AliExpress, has dramatically better prices and selection than my local malls.
ebay has lots. Find one you like, if you can’t / don’t want to tackle it yourself, go to your local watch repair place or jeweler; $10 or $20 for them to do it for you.
The whole reason for this thread even existing is that the OP wasn’t able to find a “local watch repair place or jeweler” willing and able to do this small job.
To me, it sounded like the local places didn’t have any replacement stock. I was saying buy one online & only have the local place do the labor if he couldn’t / didn’t want to.
I had the same problem some years ago when I wanted to get my watch battery replaced. I didn’t have the tools to get the back off the watch, so stopped a jeweler (which I’d done many times in the past) and was told “We don’t have a clockmaker on staff.” WTF? I ended up going to a kiosk in a different mall that specifically dealt with those sorts of things.
I got the impression that he was just looking at the chain stores that were in the mall. Independent jewelers probably won’t be in the mall. Probably need to do a little bit of looking around to find a local place.
What model Casio?
It turns out to be a Timex. My wanderings took me to the hardware store, which has a tinker on staff. He replaced my watch battery but reported the pin was bent and he did not have to correct part. I expect Amazon to deliver it to me tomorrow.
Timex Expedition Scout Chronograph
I should give up bus driving and move into the face-paced world of minor watch repairs.
The pins and the pin tool will be exactly what you need. If you find the process to be too fiddly (those pins can go flying!) then take it back to the hardware dude.