HOW TO drill additional lug holes (tissot band re-position) >>>

This post is long overdue, but my schedule has severly limited my free time, so I've basically been awol.

Reto asked if I'd try a close up pic of my project and a little more depth as to how I pulled it off. Here goes....



The concept itself and in reality the execution is fairly straight forward, only the risk is significant I wanted to add new springbar holes higer up on the lugs of my watch so that I could move the strap closer to the dial side of the case.

1. Remove the strap and carefully mark the new holes. I used a simple "jig" cut from a heavy 3x5 card, and made my marks based off of the current spring bar holes and the front edge of the case- so that the holes would have enough material to be secure, and not leaving the strap hanging off the front so to speak. My goal was to have the strap, after instalation, close to flush with the dial side- or a little below, and close to the case without much gap, . This conviently lined the center of the new holes up nicely with the back edge of the case- on one axis and the center of the existing holes on the other, so I had multiple landmarks to key off of. In actuality even afer carefully measuring, and marking with a fine tipped sharpie, I used plain old visualization to be sure they all looked right- and I may have been able to do as good a job just by "eyeballing" it, or using a straight edge to set up a 2- axis intersection. After all it's not like there a lot of real estate to work with!

2. Sit back and look at it oh about 100x and contemplate- do I really want to do this?

3. Tape off the edges of the lugs and check the alignment of the drill, to be sure I wasn't trying to put holes in at too much of an angle. I'm sure we can all picture the drill, when applied at an angle skating off and gouging just about anything and eveything- I know I did

4. Mock everything up and go-over the "steps" 1 more time mentally.

5. Secure the watch head in a vise- or whatever just tight enough that you know you've got control of that piece.

6. Use a drill punch to mark the center of the desired hole, then check everything again. Center punches come in a huge variety, from nice spring loaded jobbies, to well- a nail. I started the marking by hand- and since the watch is a vintage piece without a hardend steel case I was in luck, I could actually press it in just the faintest amount. Then after confirming that I was actually putting the center in the center, I lightly tapped a deeper mark using a hammer, and then a slightly deeper one by using just a wee bit more force. Yet again the soft case was a real assest to this process.

7. Once the center mark was suffecntly deep to "hold" the drill bit I put the bit in the drill, checked it, and the "masking" of the lug edge. In order to minimize the drill angle (ideally 90 b/w drill bit and drilling surface, but a bit less in this instance) I had to have the smooth part of the bit shaft actuallytouching the lugs. Yikes, but really it helped make everything quite stable.

8. Look at everything one more time- at which point I was actually still struggling to remain paitent- at this point I felt good about it but still had to check

9. Drill the holes, slowly at first, but if you've ever drilled metal you know that too slow dosent work either. I used a slice of tape on the bit shaft to act as a depth guage, so I wouldn't go to deep ~1/16"

10. Finish one with satisfaction, check paitence level, and repeat 3 more times.



The new holes are the ones with the springbar in the photos- I couldn't get a decent pic so I added that for a marker. And obviously this isn't much a "pictoral" but I hope it at least gives an idea of the basic process.

Thanks for the inspiration guys!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2011 07:32PM by Reto.