Had some fun with this quite rare Orfina 1947 watch, with it’s quirky case design, though inside the movement is a A.S Schild Cal.1977 manual wind, which is pretty decent having been in production from the early 1940’s to the mid 1960’s. It has 17 jewels and a 44hr power reserve, with an incorporated Incabloc suspension system.
However, this watch is quirky case wise and with it’s odd spring-bar strap dimensions, very tricky to replace the strap, which in this case was not original, modified badly to fit and in very poor condition. The case is 40mm top to bottom, but the upper buckle end strap spring-bar is just 12mm in length and the lower spring-bar somewhat larger at 18mm.
You can either use a, 18mm strap, cut down (drastically) to fit the upper case 12mm bar, then the normal 18mm strap tail on the lower bar, but believe me, that option looks really, really, odd. Basically, as the case is sharply pointed, it doesn’t sit parallel to the strap. It just, at the top of the case, seem as if someone has “butchered” the strap to fit.
The other and for me, the preferred option, is to use a 12mm strap on the top bar, which looks really neat. Then use the 18mm strap tail (using two straps of course – of 12mm and 18mm widths) on the lower bar where the case is wide. In both cases then, the straps look right as they fit at the case neatly.
Then carefully taper the 18mm strap tail end down to 12mm to allow it to slide into the 12mm buckle. I realised I’d need to ensure the taper was down to 12mm before the first (tightest) strap hole, to allow for different wrist sizes.
The straps also had to have no side stitching, as I’d be cutting the sides away for a good length of the strap and I found the unstitched Di Modell black leather Calf straps were perfect and great quality.
The old strap, which was not original, was unevenly cut at the top, as whoever had fitted it, had used a 16mm strap, probably in an attempt to minimise the upper and lower width differences. But, the lower strap, also 16mm didn’t fit the 18mm spring-bar and looked just plain wrong.
I now know how difficult it is to cut a taper in a small leather watch strap, without going off course – It’s tricky!
So, best reading glasses on, a hard wooden chopping board, a 12mm strap as a template, a tight grip and my old Stanley knife – and cutting as carefully as possible PLUS a lot of luck – and job done! AND it worked out pretty well!
Another aspect was tricky as although both straps were the same Maker, the strap thickness was different, the larger 20mm width being twice the thickness of the 12mm. But, once the larger tail end 20mm strap was tapered and fitted, it looked just fine.
The determining factor of this, of course was my Wife, who despite the difference in thickness and flexibility (I’m talking watch here!) managed, with some ease, it has to be said, to fit it to her wrist and she is delighted with it.
It may be noted that the upper strap, owing to the pointy case, has to be screwed to the case, to stop it being a sharp and lethal instrument, sticking out from the wrist! However, as these things happen – somewhere along the way I managed to lose the original screw, which was large headed ( and yes, that’s it in the very first image) but I’ve managed temporarily to fit a small headed one. I will change that as and when I find one suitable.
Watch space 