How to attach Omega emblem to 200M bracelet

[W30bob]

Hi Guys,

I picked up a second Pre Bond 200m (396.1041) that's in nice shape, but the gold OMEGA emblem was missing from the clasp of the 1455/452 bracelet. So I've since picked up an original emblem and now need to know how to properly attach it to the clasp indentation. The key word here is 'properly', as it seems these emblems disappear rather freqently from these bracelets, and I don't want a repeat performance. To help understand how it was attached I picked up a cheap Polaris bracelet clasp in which someone had forceably removed the same emblem but left traces of it in the indentation. I figured that under magnification I could tell how it was previously attached, but after looking at it I'm still pretty clueless. I don't see epoxy residue of any kind or any heat stress from a spot weld (if the emblem is only gold plated and not solid gold), and if it was solid gold and friction welded to the stainless I would expect to see some heat discoloration in the 1455 bracelet indentation, which I don't.....it's perfectly clean and not heat discolored. So these two clasps aren't giving up their secret to me......which is where you guys come in.

I'm not saying I want to replicate how Omega put the two parts together, as that apparently wasn't very successful, but then again the Polaris emblem looks like it put up one hell of a fight before ultimately losing the battle. So at this point I'm just looking for advice on how to best reattach the new emblem to the clasp, and if anyone knows how it was originally done?

thanks,
bob

 

[DON]

Sometimes they just snap into place

 

[W30bob]

Hi Don,
In this case there's nothing to snap into anything. The depression if flat with no outer lip and the back of the emblem is perfectly flat. When placed in the clasp there is a small gap all the way around the emblem.......so there's nothing to retain it at all. I'm sure some emblems do snap in.........but this can't be one of them.

;O)

 

[Mouse_at_Large]

Not sure if this is any help, but on my Titane Chrono, the gold emblem sits flush with the clasp and would appear to be a friction fit.

 

[W30bob]

Hi Mouse,

Thanks for that. I'm pretty sure it's not a friction fit, especially if it's a hunk of 18k gold, and I say that for two reasons. First, gold is very malleable and will distort pretty easily if you put pressure on it. So it wouldn't be a good candidate for a friction fit, as a friction fit requires the two parts to be rigid. Second, while both gold and stainless expand roughly the same amount for a given temperature, the rate at which they expand when exposed to a change in temperature is different, meaning they would grow or shrink at different rates and the friction fit would be lost. I certainly could be wrong, as I learned to never say never. The other thing that makes me think it's not a friction fit is that even if the gold didn't deform under pressure they'd need a very tight tolerance between the emblem and the depression.....and from what I've measured on these bracelets I'd say they played fast and loose with tolerances in general. Hopefully someone knows for sure and will let us know. Otherwise we have quite the mystery on our hands, don't we? Good fun!

;O)

 

[Archer]

I would use some epoxy...

 

[hoipolloi]

I am not sure about the above but I know they heated the case back really hot, dropped the medallion in there, let it cool down and medallion stays there.

 

[W30bob]

Hi h,

That's interesting. I was wondering why I saw so many casebacks with their medallion missing.......that makes sense. In this situation you can see the walls of the depression are vertical, which would grip the medallion. On the clasp I'm talking about the sides of the indentation are stamped in and on a slight angle, so they wouldn't catch and squeeze the emblem. I did find another clasp on eBay, not the same one, but what looks like a similar situation and it's below. The discoloration under where the emblem sat is saying something, but I'm not sure what. Probably that a glue was used, and the residue is what is discolored. If I get a chance this week I'm going to run my clasp and emblem over to a jeweler and see what they can tell me.

;O)

 

[bazelot]

Epoxy would be the best for that. Most of the bracelets from the 80s are missing the Omega logo so I would assume that whatever Omega was using was not successful that is why they moved to the stamp in the second generation clasp