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Absolutely brilliant!
I want one! The bracelet was the weak point in an otherwise great reinterpretation. Thanks for sharing. Did the end links require any modification?
On this bracelet, a warning for the those whose hands are large relative to their wrist size
the clasp itself isn’t very long, which means that when open the bracelet aperture has expanded only 3x that clasp’s short length, which isn’t a whole lot. I have decently large hands (relative to my 7 3/4+ wrists), and so it requires a bit of a tuck and squeeze to get the open bracelet over the widest part of the hand.
if my hand-to-wrist ratio were just a bit more weighted toward the hand size, I’d probably have a hard time using this bracelet.
So, if you have smaller wrists (needing the bracelet sized down to fit) compared to your larger hand size, you might consider this slight fitment oddity of the NEW321 bracelet.
I'm picking up the new 40.5mm 1957 Speedmaster soon. Is this the case with that bracelet/clasp also?
Thanks very much for your thorough reply, @mrchen. Very confusing though -- looking at @Pinmeuphere's post above, I can see the 777 and 774 designation on his bracelet, too. So these are meant to be identical parts. Why is it that his fit but yours didn't? I would believe that they are the same endlinks.
It would just be a bummer to drop so much on the bracelet and have to use hollow end links from Forstner or Uncle Seiko -- a big part of the appeal of buying the OEM bracelet is the solid endlinks. Just want to be as sure as I can that it would fit before taking the leap.
The issue with the OEM Ed White end link is that the alignment for the springbar is just tenths of a millimeter away from where it should be. People have reported more success on the Trilogy Speedmaster model with these bracelets as stock, and if you notice on your OEM SM300 end links, there's a small designation noting that it's for the Seamaster, so even across the OEM Trilogy bracelet these watches were shipped with proprietary end links for each model, which leads me to believe that the spring bar holes are drilled in different places for each model. You can probably chance it on the Ed White bracelet with 1.2mm spring bars if you can find them, but those really don't inspire the most confidence keeping on your wrist for a $7k watch.
I've read a lot about thickness of springbars being the issue here, but I wonder if it's curvature? Looking at OP's post, the ends of the springbars look such that they are bent or curved. @Pinmeuphere -- any chance you could chime in to help those of us out who are interested in this bracelet option as well?
I am using 1.5mm spring bars. And yes there is a slight curvature in order to make the ends of the bars fit into the lug holes. At first I babied it a bit when I wore it, but now it’s been on for many months with no issues. I’m fully confident and wear it without a thought now. Love the look of the bracelet, omega should have released the trilogy watches with this bracelet from the beginning.
@Jetguy87 How did your bracelet end up fitting? I had mine on for around 6 months and wore it casually, but then noticed that the bracelet link was beginning to chew the inside lug of the watch a bit, leaving tiny dents and marks. I've got it on a leather strap for now until I workshop and rethink how to fix this.
It's not horrible, but definitely noticeable. The case lug was sharp and mint prior to fitting the bracelet on. I imagine the majority of vintage watches went through this which is why the lugs today are so rounded and smooth (besides all the polishing from service). fyi these are on 1.5mm spring bars, which I think gives just enough play for the sidelink to rub against the case like it does in mine. 1.8mm springbars also fit onto the Uncle Seiko endlinks.