Nearly all watch straps are held to the watch with spring loaded bars called, funnily enough, spring bars. These are the bars that spring into tiny holes in the watch case securing the strap to the watch’s body.

To remove the old watch strap you will need to compress one end of the spring bar so that it can be freed from the hole in the watch case in which it usually sits. You can buy a special spring bar removal tool to do this (available, of course, from us at a very competitive price) which has a special shaped forked end, or you can improvise by using a small screw driver, to compress the bar enough to free it from the watch case.

Once one end of the spring bar is free, the other should just come out too, freeing the watch strap. Before you completely remove both parts of the watch strap, make a note of which of the two pieces of watch strap goes on which side of the watch. Usually, with the watch upright in front of you, the part of the watch strap with the buckle goes at the top.

Repeat the same procedure for the second part of the watch strap which will also be held with a spring bar. It may be a good idea to clean the dirt you are likely to find around the watch at this point, prior to fitting the new watch strap. You now have your watch strap removed ready for the replacement watch strap to be fitted.

Fitting the new watch strap is merely a reverse of the procedure above and is in fact easier than removing the watch strap. Making sure the correct part of the watch strap is going on the right end of the watch (and is the right way up!), locate one end of the spring bar into one of the small holes in the watch case. Then, using a finger nail, a small jeweller’s screw driver (or one of our reasonably priced spring bar removal tools), compress the other end of the spring bar and slide it between the shoulders of the watch and move it until it locates in the other hole in the watch case.

Repeat this with the other part of the watch strap.