Changing a watch strap used to mean a spring bar tool, a steady hand, and a decent chance of putting a scratch across your lugs. Quick-release spring bars removed all three problems.
If your strap has them, you can change it in well under a minute, with nothing but your fingers.
How to tell if you have them
Turn the strap over and look at the end that meets the watch. A quick-release bar has a small knurled lever sticking out of the middle of the bar — a tiny ridged tab, usually 4—6 mm wide. Slide it sideways and you will see one end of the pin retract.
No lever means conventional spring bars, and you will need a spring bar tool.
Taking the old strap off
- Rest the watch face-down on a soft cloth. A microfibre or even a folded tea towel is fine — the point is that the crystal is not sitting on a hard desk.
- Find the lever on the underside of the strap end.
- Slide it towards the middle of the strap and hold it there. The pin on that side retracts into the bar.
- Tilt that end of the strap out of the lug while keeping the lever held. It should drop free with no force at all.
If you find yourself pushing hard, stop. Something is not retracted, and force is exactly how lugs get scratched.
Putting the new strap on
- Check the orientation. The shorter half of the strap goes at 12 o'clock, the longer half with the holes at 6 o'clock. Getting this backwards is the single most common mistake.
- Seat one end of the bar in its lug hole first, without touching the lever.
- Slide the lever to retract the other end, and drop the strap into place between the lugs.
- Release the lever and let the pin spring into the hole. You should feel a small click.
- Tug the strap firmly. Not gently — firmly. Better to find a bar that has not seated now than when the watch is on your wrist over a hard floor.
The scratch that catches people out
Almost all lug damage happens at one moment: the pin is only half retracted, the fitter forces it, and the pin tip drags across the polished inside face of the lug.
Two habits prevent it entirely. Hold the lever until the strap is fully clear or fully seated — not most of the way. And always work face-down on a cloth, so if something slips, it slips onto fabric.
When a quick-release strap will not seat
Usually one of three things:
- Wrong lug width. A 20 mm strap will not sit properly in 22 mm lugs — it will go in, and it will wobble. Check with our lug width guide.
- Drilled versus blind lugs. On drilled lugs the pin passes through a hole you can see from outside; on blind lugs it seats in a recess inside. Both work, but on blind lugs you are locating the pin by feel.
- A tired spring. Bars do wear out. If a pin no longer springs back briskly, replace the bar — they cost very little and a failed bar means a dropped watch.
Straps worth swapping to
Most of our straps ship with quick-release bars already fitted, which is what makes changing them worth doing on a whim. The French goat leather strap is about as soft as leather gets from day one, and the FKM rubber strap is the one to reach for around water.
Browse the rest in all straps.