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580 Aftermaket Endlinks besides WholeSaleOutlet (Ebay)?


RickFlorida

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Hello everyone.

 

After only reinstalling my WSO 580 endlinks for a second time, (every now and then I'll take my Nato off and put on my oyster bracelet), one of the inner tubes that is spot welded or soldered inside the endlink broke off.  Upon this happening, I inspected the tubes that are inside of these endlinks  and I immediately noticed they are incredibly thin and poorly made.   They must be less than .4 mm in wall thickness and they have partial tears in them.  (out of all 4 of them (there are two in each endlink), it seems 2 or 3 of them seem ready to come off).  Not only do those tubes look weak just by themselves, but I can't even tell if these are spot welded or soldered onto the endlink because I can't even find any joining material at all.

 

i could remove the remaining ones and try to make my own and solder them in properly (I make jewelry as a hobby).   But does anyone know of swiss made or any higher grade aftermarket endlinks for fat bar submariner oyster bracelets?

 

Edited by RickFlorida
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I'm going to assume the lack of replies means there are no better alternative endlinks than the originals.  So... I have one solution that I should I should share....

 

I realize that if you try to just buy a WSO endlink and knock out the thin tubes, (that came out by accident anyways for me), you can't really add thicker walled tubes without changing how far back the tubes sit inside the endlink.   Since these endlinks do have a great fitting overall for the bracelets and the midcase....   The best solution is to simply clean the hell out of the inside of the endlinks when you get them, and then take what we call in America, "Black Flux" which is for stainless steel.   Then take a 4 small pieces of quality solder that has some silver in it or there are some other solder types for stainless steel, and then solder those pieces onto both side of each of the inner tubes.   This will add more strength to the tubes because as I mentioned, they don't seem to be soldered onto the endlinks really at all to me.  I believe they are weakly "spot welded" maybe with a small laser welder.  YOu will need to use high heat from a gas torch of some type.  Propane will work.  You need to wear magnification or just have really good eyes and watch the inner tubes and make sure that you don't add too much heat and collapse the tubes.

 

Maybe I just got a bad batch or something.  But if all WSO endlinks are constructed like mine... you will want to beef it up before you drop your watch and destroy the movement and crystal or just lose the whole watch.

Edited by RickFlorida
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  • 3 weeks later...

Another solution...

I had the same problem. First, I cleaned the inside of the end link and good as I could, then I took the drill bit that I used to drill the lugs and greased it and then slipped it through the rings. Then, I took JB Weld epoxy and just laid a bead of it across the rings. After it cured you will be able to pull the drill bit out...with pliers. Voila.

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