Many dealers including the RSC and AD swears by that used Rolex bands cannot be fixed or restored.
However that is not true and many members of this forum knows of the band restoration service for quite some time.
Becasue my other business in watch packaging has taken up so much of my time I have not be able to join these forums for the last few years. My apologies. Sometimes this silence is good when I see negative comments, some white knights will come to save my burning reputation.
Much better than for me to try to explain the situation. Kudos for all who helped to keep this business alive, at some point of time I was considering killing it off because of the negativeness of some members. But decided to go on since I go so much support once this news broke out. Plus I needed to use my own services for my new aquisitions, that is the other part of the story
Back to the topic
Just wanted to get some facts straight and demystify the whole band restoration process.
Myth #1
Sometimes they will say that all the links are changed to new ones and only the buckle and end links are saved. Not true. They are all saved. Except sometimes for broken links, we usually help to find good used original links for replacement.
More of those later if interest level is high.....
OK photos of the day
Drum Rolls .........
See Band1 pic. This is the black box. This is the small version of our machines to break open this 93150 first link.
Band 2 shows that the link has been gripped by the 2 black claws and by pulling in opposite directions the links slowly breaks open.
Band 3 shows the inners of the link, 3 pins for each link for both solid oyster and jubilee bands. The 1st and 3rd pin is load bearing and usually is where the wear is most.
The looseness is not the center piece of the link stretching, it mainly comes from the inner pins wearing the center link becasue it is hollow. After thousands of times of grinding the pins becomes thinner and the link wears thinner at the inner exteremes. Worst cases is that there is too much slack and the links starts to move, then it grinds into the corners of the center link. So in very worn bands you will see the center links with chamfered corners.
Our job is to first put a metal sleeve or tube over the existing pin, depending on wear we have different thickness of sleeves. After the correct ones can be identified then the link is put back in place by the same machine going the the other direction as before to force back the 3 pins into its home.
To be continued....