drdaz

Glad you enjoyed it! Honestly, I was laughing hysterically towards the end of the described ordeal myself... There were actually more tools broken in the process than I mentioned...

Heh... Well after I'd bodged the one side, I removed 2 links from the other without a problem. The only thing that went (catastrophically) wrong here was hammering the tool too far in. The pliers haven't worked thus far...

The following is a story of complete failure in resizing a Link strap. The results are both tragic and funny. A couple of weeks ago I received my Link from PT. It's a lovely piece. I haven't had the pleasure of wearing it yet, since the strap was too large, and I didn't have access to tools. Today, a good friend of mine lent me his tools so that I could resize the strap. Once I got home from work, I went about removing the first pin using the pin punch tool and a hammer. Unfortunately, as this was my first attempt at doing this type of thing, I carried on hammering until the pin was most of the way out of the other side. It was only once I removed the pin that it struck me - the pin came out quite easily in comparison to how much hammering was needed to push it out... As you will have probably gathered by now, the pin pusher was jammed into the bracelet really hard. Hard enough that the handle came off it when I pulled it. So hard in fact that no amount of yanking, sweating and swearing moved it a millimeter. Trying to hammer the pin back in the other side only bent the pin. I was screwed, I thought. Then I had another great idea. My friend was kind enough to lend me a fine 1mm (swiss) screwdriver to undo the screws in the bracelet. It seemed like a sturdy instrument, and seemed to fit into the holes where the pins go. So I proceeded to hammer the screwdriver in the other side of the link, to try and push it out. It didn't work. And it was jammed into the link just as hard as the pin pusher. So, I started the yanking and swearing again, this time on the screwdriver. The results were similar, and I pulled the handle off. When I took some industrial strength tools to it, however, unlike the seemingly unbreakable pin pusher, the shaft of the screwdriver snapped. To summarize, instead of removing the pin, I replaced it with half a screwdriver and a pin pusher tool. And the strap still doesn't fit. It's a terrible mess, as you can see here: I expect that there's really not much more that can be done here. If anybody has any suggestions as to how to get the tools out again, I'd love to hear them! I've considered going to the watchmaker with this, but since it's a rep I'm hesitant. With that said, if you look at the first picture, you can see that one of the ball-bearing type things has come out. The thing used to keep the 'lid' on the clasp down. It's present in the third photo... I have the ball and the spring that sits under it, but it won't stay in there. Suggestions on how to fix that would also be appreciated. As said, I suspect that I'm going to need to order a new strap, and certainly a new set of tools for my friend.

Another very happy customer here. Repair of a Carrera Chrono and waterproofing. Previous to Domi looking at it, it was gaining about 1 min / day, now it keeps great time (seems to be < 20 sec / week). It also makes much less noise, the datewheel looks better for some reason (!) and it looks and feels like an altogether healthier watch. He's fast, exceptionally polite and maintains communication well (even sent pictures of the thing disassembled, as well as the damaged parts of the movement). All in all, a pleasure to deal with, and clearly a master of his craft.