Vintage Watch Straps

Special Cutters for Leather

Each piece of every strap needs to have a special cutter made to cut it out from a hide of leather. These cutters are in principle just like pastry cutters that cooks use to cut shapes out of pastry, but the difference is that these cutters are made from tool steel, and are pressed through the leather using a hydraulic press which exerts tons of force! It simply isn't possible to cut the leather neatly any other way, scissors and knives just don't make a neat job, which is why I can only supply the designs that I have have cutters for.

If you have a really special project in mind, then of course I could get the cutter, or cutters, made for specially for you, but do bear in mind that each cutter costs about £60 - £80, so you can see that they are not cheap, and that I have already invested quite a bit of capital in setting up to make these straps. If you want a special that I don't have a cutter for, then I will need to charge you to get the cutter made, unless possibly it is a design that I can use and sell to others, in which case there might be room for negotiation. I am always happy to talk about special projects, so drop me an email.

Type A and Type B designs

Type C with Double Slots

Three Basic Designs

I have cutters for three basic designs. The original Type A and Type B design are shown on the left, the more recently added Type C is shown on the right. The Type A design can only be supplied with the standard single slots for the strap to pass through, but the Type B and Type C can be made with either the standard single, or the double slots which are described below.

The Type A design has straight sides, and the back piece is 25mm or one inch wide all the way along. The Type A design can take straps up to 16mm in width. I usually keep 10mm and 12mm in stock. The Type A design is not suitable for double slots.

The Type B design is about 35mm wide before flaring out to a wider section of about 40mm wide behind the watch, with a notch for the crown. This size of the Type B design suits average size trench watches of diameters between about 32mm to 37mm best. I can also supply two larger sizes of the Type B strap that suit watches of (1) up to 45mm and (2) up to 50mm.

The Type B strap can take straps up to 20mm width, and can be supplied with either single slots as shown in the picture, or double slots for 10mm, 12mm or 14mm straps. I keep the Type B strap in stock in 10mm in the single slot design, and in 12mm width in both single and double slot styles. If you make a special order on a Type B and you want double slots, please be sure to make this clear. The Type B can also be made without the notch in the standard but not the larger sizes.

The Type C design is similar to the Type A, but is about 31mm wide. I have had this made to take wider straps than the Type A can accommodate - 16mm is the limit on the Type A, but the Type C can easily take straps up to 20mm in width. The Type C can also take the double slot feature, which just doesn't work on the Type A because it is not stiff enough. I keep the Type C strap in stock in 12mm widths in both single and double slot styles. If you make a special order on a Type C and you want double slots, please make that clear with your order.

Type B tan morocco double slots.

Single or Double Slots

I came across a picture of a watch with a strap that had closely spaced double slots so that the thinner strap ran on the outside of the backpiece over most of the circumference. I liked the somehow more rugged appearance of this strap so I have now had some more cutters made to reproduce this appearance, and also sourced some tan morocco leather like on the strap shown. You can see my version of this strap fitted to an early Omega in the picture to the left.

This design can only be made on the Type B and Type C back pieces and for 10mm, 12mm and 14mm straps due to limitations in the cutters. Please note: Double slots maximum width 14mm.

Lug & Strap Width

What width Strap or Band do I need?

What width strap do you need? The strap should fit the lugs snugly, or else the watch is always wandering off to one side and it gets very annoying pulling it back to the centre all the time. If your watch has a strap currently fitted that doesn't fit the lugs snugly, then it is the wrong size. When new, the strap should fit the lugs tightly because as you wear the strap and it stretches lengthwise, it also shrinks slightly across the width, and if it only just fitted the lugs when new, it soon goes sloppy.

The picture shows an Electa watch with a correct size strap, 12mm in this case - see how it snugly fits the wire lugs. To find out what width of strap you need, either carefully measure the inside width of the lugs on your watch, or cut a strip of card so that it just slides through the lugs, and then measure the width of the strip.

Please note that I can only supply straps in even sizes, that is even numbers of millimetres i.e. 10mm, 12mm, 14mm etc. which is determined by the cutters in the workshop. If you are sure that your lugs are an odd size, I always advise that you go for the next larger size, e.g if you measure your lugs as 11mm, get a 12mm strap. It will fit with a bit of careful threading through: leather is a marvellous material which will squash down to fit the lugs. This looks a lot better than a narrow strap that leaves your watch slopping about from side to side. And also leather straps always get slightly narrower as you wear them, because as they stretch slightly in length, they contract in width, and you don't want it to go sloppy after a few wears.

I try to always keep in stock the standard 10mm and 12mm widths. I can also supply 14mm, 16mm, 18mm, 20mm etc. wide straps to order, which takes a couple of weeks, but if you need one it is well worth the wait! Please bear remember that the cutters go up in 2mm increments, so I can't do odd sizes like 13 or 15mm.

The standard Type A design does not look right with straps larger than 16mm, but if you need a wider strap, the Type C design is perfect. We also have cutters for straight back pieces in 35mm and 41mm widths if required, which will take even wider straps. As I mentioned above the Type B back piece is also available in bigger sizes, which will also take wider straps, although the standard Type B back piece can easily accommodate 20mm widths. If you have a watch that none of these options suits, then get in touch; I can usually come up with something - try me!

Strap / Band Lengths

The length of each strap is adjustable between about 190mm and 215mm, but the fit depends on how chunky your watch is, because of the way the strap loops through the lugs. The watch I am wearing in the photos has 10mm fixed lugs and is 35mm diameter, excluding lugs and crown. My wrist measures just over 7" around, and with the strap comfortably loose and the leather still stiff from being new, I have two more holes and about an inch of adjustment left, so I reckon as supplied they would fit wrists measuring up to about 8" around. From experience the standard length seems to suit most people, but if your wrist is extra thick or thin, just send me a measurement round and I'll advise whether your need a longer or shorter strap. These can always be made to order, so we can suit everyone at the end of the day.

Materials

Each strap is each made of top quality double sided leather, that is with a leather outer and leather lining stitched together. White metal buckles are fitted as standard. Gold plated buckles can be supplied as special orders at no extra cost.

Type A straps in five different colours.

Leather Colours

All straps are made of top quality double sided leather, that is leather outer and leather lining, and are available in at least the following colours:

New Colours

Most of these colours are illustrated in the pictures on the right. We have now run out of the original chestnut, but have secured a close substitute called Cognac. It is really quite difficult to tell the difference between this and the original chestnut. This and a couple of other new colours are shown in the picture to the left.

Military Tan leather.

The picture to the right shows the military tan, and the one on the left the tan morocco, which is a traditional hard grain morocco I had printed up. There are more pictures showing some of the different leathers with watches on the pictures and customers pages. Please bear in mind it is very difficult to get an accurate colour reproduction on a computer screen. If you want a colour I haven't illustrated, please ask - I can supply green, red, yellow, blue, white etc as well!

Special Orders

In addition to these stock straps, I have also been asked to make some special straps to customers own specific requirements, and also straps for wrist compasses. I am always happy to try and help you achieve what you want for your own vintage watch - just drop me an email with your idea, and I will let you know if it can be done. The price will be similar to one of my stock straps, and will be well worth it if you have a specific strap design in mind that you just can't find.

Straps for Smaller Wrists

Small Back Pads

If your wrist measures less than 6½" or 165mm around then the standard back pads will be too long. I have two designs of shorter back pad which are suitable for smaller wrists shown in the picture below. These are made to special order so you can have them in whatever colour and strap width (within reason) you wish. Please email me with details of what you want, particularly wrist and watch lug size, and I will send you a link so you can place an order if you wish.

Leather NATO G10 in cognac

NATO G10 Leather Strap

I can supply to special order a leather NATO G10 style replacement for nylon NATO G10 straps for military watches as shown in the picture to the left. These can be made in the colour of your choice, and are much more stylish and comfortable to wear than a nylon strap, and I also think they look more "period" on an older military watch. They are made in standard length to go round your wrist, not over a flying or diving suit, so they don't have the very long tail of the nylon strap. The leather NATO G10 can be made with stainless steel hardware in 2mm increments from 12mm wide to 24mm wide, and with gilt (gold plated) hardware in 18mm and 20mm widths.

Because these straps are custom made to your order, they can be made to any length to fit your wrist. Just let me know if your wrist measures more than 7½" or less than 6½" around and I'll adjust the length to fit you better.

NB: Leather will harden and crack if subjected to repeated soaking in water and therefore leather straps are not suitable for diving.

Bund Style Straps

If you have a modern watch with fixed bars or spring bars, it is quite likely that my standard one-piece strap won't fit between the bars and the case. My standard straps are about 2mm thick, but it is not just the thickness of the leather that can be the problem, it is the actual placement of the bars on the case, designed to take a strap that terminates on the bars, not one that wraps through the bars and across the back of the case of WW1 era watches or later Military Standard (MilStan) watches, which have a larger gap between the bars and the case to allow for a one piece strap. If your watch has a narrow gap between the bars and the case, then I can supply to special order "bund style" variations of my standard straps.

Actual bund straps, like those issued to the German armed forces, have a short back pad that only goes just behind the immediate back of the watch case. These look OK if your strap is a decent width, say 20mm plus, and I can supply this short traditional bund strap back piece if you prefer it. I personally don't like the look of the short bund back pad, I prefer a back pad that wraps further around the wrist. This is particularly the case if the strap is narrow, as those on my WW1 era watches are, because the short bund back pad emphasises the girly look of the narrow strap around the rest of your wrist.

To suit modern watches with narrow case to bar gaps I can supply any of my back pads with "bund style" two piece open ended straps, which fit directly onto the bars of your watch rather than looping through them. The two piece strap is "open ended", which means that the ends of the strap are not stitched together. You wrap the ends of the straps around the bars of your watch and then fix them together with metal tabs that are stitched into the straps. We do this even for spring bars because the normal ends that take spring bars won't pull through the slots in the back pads. The open ended straps are quite easy to fit, and quite secure.

Open ended straps

Open Ended Straps

Open ended straps will fit any fixed or spring bar case without wrapping across the back of the case. The strap is supplied in two pieces with open ends that wrap around the bars and are fixed together with a "tin tab". These are available in widths from 10mm to 24mm in 2mm increments in any choice of leather colour. They are supplied with silver colour buckles, but you may specify a gold coloured buckle at no extra cost.