PO bracelet sizing tutorial

[crick]

hi guys. With all the questions asked, i thought i do a quick tutorial on sizing the PO bracelet with the tools that i have.

EASIEST way is to take it to a watchsmith.

NEXT easiest way is to go out and buy a link pin remover. Any will work, but i'll be describing what i use.

=============

1) The first step in this all is to buy a link pin remover. The one i have is this:




Comes with several extra pinheads and can be purchased here (replace XX with TT):

hXXp://www.amazon.com/Watch-Band-Remove ... 504&sr=8-1

2) when you get it, the next step is to break one of the extra pin heads for later use. Use nailclippers or soemthing to get a clean break. The current pinhead that you get is somewhat short, so i use this extra tip of the pinhead to help me push the rest of the watchpins out.



3) Now onto resizing the bracelet. Pretty much intuitive: place the bracelet on the link pin remover tool. Twist the knob and push the pin out. make sure the bracelet is facing up! Eventually, you'll get to a point where the pinTool is fully in, but only half the link is out (this occurs with my tool, may not occur with other tools). Some may suggest using pliers to pull the pin out. I HAVE TRIED THIS and IT BROKE THE PIN. So don't do it.






4) Instead, that extra PINHEAD you broke off earlier? use that. Insert that pinhead into the bracelet (i find inserting the uneven/cut side in first to be helpful), and then push the rest of the pin out.



5) Don't forget to collect the watch's pinTube and your pinhead from the tube before going to the next link.



6) CONGRATULATIONS. Half way through. To re-attach everything, it's basically the reverse. Make sure you reinsert the PINTUBE



7) In this step, i removed my pinhead from the linkpin Remover. I'm going to use the flatend of the screwtube from my linkPinRemover tool to push the pins back in place.



8.) Make sure your pin is aligned and that your bracelet is aligned while you're pushing the pin in.




Once all pins are attached, you can now feel free to put your pinhead back onto the LinkPin tool and further finetweak/push the pins into place.

Hope this is helpful!

 

[Anubis]

Very helpful and thoroughly informative post crick.

I still like mine better:


It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[crick]

ROTFLMAO

yeah, hoping it helps a few.

rather like lotion, thankyou

 

[Anubis]

I gotta tell you though...those sketches....are phenomenal....

It's almost like you do this for a living or smth....

 

[crick]

I gotta tell you though...those sketches....are phenomenal....

It's almost like you do this for a living or smth....

I'm a sales consultant, really

 

[takashi]

hahaha. crick is very proficient to work with his Wacom pad and digitizer

 

[bTrizzy]

Nice tutorial!

 

[Omega-Man]

Very nice. Thank you.

 

[johnstonmurray]

Thanks for the info!

 

[d4m.test]

Thumb tack, pliers and a hammer worked beautifully...
Look mom, no scratches!

 

[clellandm]

Excellent tutorial - and sketches!

I paid the watch-guy at the mall $15 to beat on mine with his little hammer and it scared me seeing that bounce off my watch. That night I purchased a pin-pusher similar to yours for all future efforts.

 

[stratman]

Time to buy a pin pusher........

 

[If you see Kay]

i bought a pin pusher for this very reason. but when i used it, the damn pin pusher cracked and broke on me with the link pin of the bracelet half out. the pin pusher was essentially beyond repair, so i had to take it to the watchsmith and get him to do the rest.

he just looked at it and at first looked with a puzzled look and then I told him what happened, he just smiled and shook his head. 5 mins and 5 bucks later, i got my watch resized.

i believe it you get a solid all metal pin pusher it should be able to remove even the most stubborn link pins, even off of Narikaa's infamous PO.

the watchsmith didn't use a pin pusher, he just kept hammering away on my watch. Each time he did that, i gasped for air.

 

[juancodb]

Hi:

did anyone know how to remove the whole bracelet??? I've been trying, but I can't get it off... Thanks in advance...

 

[otakki]

Also good tutorial here at Fakey's Corner:

http://forum.replica-watch.info/vb/...al-sizing-planet-ocean-bracelet-41328?t=41328

I just wrote an "essay" there about sizing of the bracelet! What an experience!!!

 

[landwomble]

did my narikaa PO *again* tonight - now it's perfect. However, having done about 8 links on this puppy, I've broken quite a few pins. It's a bugger of a job. I'd assume it's even worse on my gen SMP with it's 9-link-wide bracelet. Difficulties I had were getting the pin out without bending it (if you *do* bend it, then try and straighten it and when you reinsert start with the straight end and hope it straightens up) and with reinserting - getting the links aligned is tricky, even with a bracelet holding tool. the bracelet's got a taper which doesn't help either.

In short, if you've not got a few spare pins, get a watch shop to do it!

 

[otakki]

Once you have successfully sized a PO bracelet, everything else seems like a breeze.

 

[Bunkie111]

Great tutorial. Only bent 1 pin.

 

[amptor]

I bought the red metal pin pusher from amazon and it looks like it should work better than those junky plastic ones. The blue plastic one will skip out and gouge into the bracelet. I didn't like that. Hopefully the red one works. I haven't tried it yet. It appears to need some red lock tite on the threads that hold the knob onto it.

All of the pin pushing tools available are, imho, junk. I wonder what the better AD dealers use to push the pins. I'm almost certain they have professional tools there. I'm mainly talking about the more established dealers. I couldn't seem to find a tool on ofrei.


My question is though. What is the best way to push the pins back in? These pin pushers don't come with a larger pusher to shove the pin back in. That was causing most of the skip over and gouging with the blue plastic tool for me. Maybe one is suppose to use one of those small watch hammers which I don't have. Or maybe I can pull out a small vice and try that.

 

[avenger007]

I bought the red metal pin pusher from amazon and it looks like it should work better than those junky plastic ones. The blue plastic one will skip out and gouge into the bracelet. I didn't like that. Hopefully the red one works. I haven't tried it yet. It appears to need some red lock tite on the threads that hold the knob onto it.

All of the pin pushing tools available are, imho, junk. I wonder what the better AD dealers use to push the pins. I'm almost certain they have professional tools there. I'm mainly talking about the more established dealers. I couldn't seem to find a tool on ofrei.


My question is though. What is the best way to push the pins back in? These pin pushers don't come with a larger pusher to shove the pin back in. That was causing most of the skip over and gouging with the blue plastic tool for me. Maybe one is suppose to use one of those small watch hammers which I don't have.

One of the little hammers is a plus. What stinks is that most pin pushers won't get the PO pins far enough out to grab with pliers and pull without a tendency to bend. I butchered a bracelet until I figured out I could use a small screw driver to gently tap the pin the rest of the way out without bending it. Tommy_Boy was kind enough to ship me some extra pins so I could get it back together. I have no desire to size one of those again.