Wednesday, April 17, 2013

How To Remove Links From A Watch

If I had to choose my favorite accessory, I'd have to say watches. I especially love BIG chunky link watches, so I love men's watches. Unfortunately, my wrist is too small to fit even women's link watches out of the box, much less men's. I dont typically get high end watches, so I don't have the luxury of getting link service included. It's definitely painful to spend $10 to get links removed from a $20 watch, so that's never an option. I decided that it was a good idea to invest in a link remover. I couldn't believe how cheap they were... I got mine on Amazon for ~$4 (SE JT6218 Watch Band Link Remover, 5-Piece). This is a must-have if you have problems fitting watches out of the box! It comes with 3 pin punches of different sizes, a base with groves to fit bands of different thicknesses, and a hammer with a soft and hard end. It is so easy to use and within a minute or two, I can remove 50% of links from a men's watch.

I have some quick tips here for those attempting to do this:

Many watches have markings on the links to indicate which direction to hammer.
In this example, you want to hammer in the same direction as the arrows.

If there aren't any arrows, then just look for the side where the pins sit further inside the hole.
In this example, the top row of links has the side where you should hammer down facing up.
The pins in the bottom row of links are flush and this is the side from where pins with come out.

1) Use the right sized pin puncher 2) Tap gently 3) Tap on the correct side.
It's that easy!

[The pins only fit back in one way (tip first), so you'll know which end is correct pretty easily.]

*Make sure you take an equal amount of links from each side of the band.
You want your watch to be balanced and to sit evenly on your wrist.

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