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Flash back with me to a year ago. Back to my days of using the standard spring bar removal tool. After a series of expletives, I took a deep breath. I tried again. Great. The spring bar removal tool slipped and gave my new Seiko SKX a battle scar across the entire case back. At least tool watches look good all beat up right? At least that’s what I told myself. I calmed down and began my search for a better way.
Drilled lugs are cool, but uncommon
One “better way” is to buy watches with drilled lugholes, like the Seiko Samurai pictured below. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of owning a watch with drilled lug holes, then you’re likely already familiar with how easy it is to simply insert the tool and pop the spring bar right out. Unfortunately that’s simply not an option on most modern watches, however.
Spring bar pliers are the answer…
My research soon led me to a tool made by Bergeon (model 6825-PF to be exact), but at a little over $200, I wasn’t really sold on that option. Call me a pennypincher and grab the Bergeon if you’d like, but I went looking for a cheaper option. I soon found one on Amazon, a generic branded “watch spring bar plier tool set”, which only cost me about $40.
So how does it work? Great! In fact I’ll be using it soon once the weather cools down, to swap the bracelet on my Speedmaster back to its original alligator strap on deployant. With the pliers, it should take roughly ten seconds without any lug scratches.
Wrapping things up
Admittedly there is one downside, which is setting the tool up for “first use”. It took a couple minutes to set the two stainless steel pin forks into the correct position, but once that’s taken care of, strap changes are a breeze. Plus, setting up the pliers is much less painless than using the dreaded spring bar removal tool.
I don’t really swap out my straps as much as I used to, as it’s become more of a seasonal thing for me (versus a weekly, or sometimes daily, thing in the past). It’s still nice to have the proper tools ready to go when they’re needed, however.
So if you’ve ever found yourself cursing while trying to remove a bracelet from your watch, or worse, a bracelet that’s secured with shoulder-less spring bars – Or even worse, found yourself crying over a scratched lug or case back from a strap change gone wrong; then try using this instead of the standard spring bar removal tool from now on. You’ll save a lot of time and stress, and hopefully avoid many unnecessary scratches.