Isn't it always the ones you pick up on a sudden urge that cause you the most bother? First venture away from vintage Omega and Seiko, picked up what I thought would be a fairly straightforward manual piece, but have run into an unforeseen snag... Now I have some small/tight lug vintage watches but never something like this with almost zero clearance for a strap and spring bars. As you can hopefully see from the attached pictures, there is barely a hairs width between the (not overly thick?) spring bars I have put in to illustrate and all efforts to put even the thinnest strap on have failed (yes, I also managed to bust the crystal trying too hard). What would be the best solution here to get a strap on? Curved end strap and curved spring bars? Any other suggestions? Also, does anyone know what on earth would this have come on originally? Runs lovely though!
I suspect it came on a bracelet or mesh bracelet with curved end links. You can find some examples if you search online for the case reference 'Universal Geneve 842111'. You could probably fit a leather strap using some curved spring bars. You may not need the strap itself to have curved ends depending on the material/construction.
You just need to get some curved spring bars - you should be able to fit them to a strap with straight ends and the leather will adapt somewhat. I have at least one watch where I've done this. The one thing I'd caution is to store the watch either flat or on a watch roll - storing with the strap folded under the watch case will result in excessive rubbing which will show. I'll see if I can find some pictures.
Thanks for the reply! I will give the curved spring bars a try and see what that does for the situation. Understood on storage with the curved spring bars, definitely seems likely to be awkward. I am guessing a generic acrylic crystal of the correct size would fit this, no particular tricky fitting mechanisms to be aware of? Digging around it seems like it came on a bracelet, looks tight on the ebay pics and that would explain the marks on my one between the lugs too:
Update - curved bars and a curved strap (in for a penny) did the job. Now to find a crystal to replace the one I bust that keeps the same or similar low profile... expect that will be a harder job! Also seen here with another manual ultra slim, Seiko Goldfeather.