Neillo Report post Posted April 28, 2014 Hey everyone, Haven't posted much of my work for a while, been doing a bit more auto and upholstery type stuff and the bench hasn't seen leather for a little while. A friend of mine that loves watches asked for a strap and pouch for a couple of his watches, here it is on a cheap Pulsar chronograph doing its work! Pretty much scrap chrome tan I had in the 'shop that matched best with the Amann Serafil M40 thread i wanted to use for a sporty look. thickness is about 3mm Second is a strap made for my active watch: a cheap and cheerful swatch chronograph I use at the gym. The leather I used for this is a beautiful goatskin, very fine and it takes well to punching holes and sewing really nicely! The thread is some mystery nylon I found at a beading store and seemed to suit the strap much better than the red thread! The whole thing was thrown together in a few hours to meet a means, so it's not a refined piece of work! Wanted to try perforating the strap this time but sewing made the strap bow or "smile" slightly so lining it all up was going to prove nightmarish! Tried it out at the gym tonight and i performs very nicely; the next step is to find tools to make a finer SPI and use finer thread like the coats terko satin I enjoy using! Hope you guys enjoy, apologies for the lousy phone camera photos; these were the best out of many! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LTC Report post Posted April 28, 2014 why did you use really big stitches? i've read generally that watchbands have around 8-10 stitches per inch. you're looks like about 5 or 6spi. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Neillo Report post Posted April 28, 2014 At the moment i don't have tools for reliably marking more than 6SPI so that's where they're at. around 9SPI is what i'll be aiming for in the near future, though 6 looks ok with the thicker thread, anything V138 or smaller looks silly with that spacing for me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
scootinnc Report post Posted April 28, 2014 I think they look great. My question is about the Swatch watch. I thought they had the 3 little "bridges" on the top and bottom of the face where the pin goes through and connects the band to the face? All of my Swatches are old, so maybe they have changed this design. If not, how did you handle that? Any close up pics of the Swatch band connection? Thanks, Joe Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Neillo Report post Posted April 29, 2014 Hey Joe, the Swatch I have has the 2 bridges and I had to use a very small hole punch and knife to cut some slots to allow for them. It proved pretty difficult to push the pin through all that soft leather so I heated up a #0 needle with a blowtorch and pushed it through the strap end of the leather to widen and burnish it; the pin went through reasonably easily after that. Pic isn't taken by me, but it's the same as my watch and the original band that was so stiff and horrible. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
