Finally!

[Gedanken]

Now the guys who've been here long enough would know that I picked up my Tudor 79170 chrono last May and it was a steal at A$2550. However, there were a few glitches along the way. Here's the Tudor as it came out of the store:



I'm not a huge fan of straps because I tend to get my watches wet in the course of day-to-day activities and a wet bracelet beats a soggy strap any day. Besides, the strap left large swags of unfinished metal exposed between the lugs and I do like things in their original state.

After a bit of hunting on eBay, I managed to get my hands on a 78360 bracelet from a seller in Italy. The bracelet had been polished to within an inch of its life, and the hinge on the clasp was also loose to the point that it could turn about 30 degrees in the wrong plane. No problems there, though - I just sent the bracelet to my favourite watchmaker and he restored it to near-new condition and brought the brushed finish back perfectly.

That wasn't the end of my problems, though. The bracelet came with a set of end links for a DateJust-type case, which was far slimmer than the Tudor's case (it's thicker than a Sea Dweller). That's when things got tough because the proper 589 end links for the Tudor were about as common as rocking horse sh*t. Peter said that he knew someone with a set of 605 end links that would fit my Tudor, but despite his kind offer to get them to me I dillied and I dallied and I dillied and I dallied and I missed the boat on that one.

I rang Rolex Melbourne and they said yes, they had 589 end links but they wanted to fit it themselves. Things got more complicated here because the watch had a somewhat murky provenance by the time I bought it from the secondhand dealer, and the spaces between the lugs were scratched to the point where neither the serial number nor the model number were legible. I didn't want to take it to Rolex and have a stink raised about the numbers, so once again I was stuck high and dry.

Along came Steve (Lol-x) with a set of new 589 end links, and voila! So here it is, the finished product:





Thanks to Steve, I got all the help I needed to restore my Tudor back to its original configuration, and special mention goes to Peter for his help as well. I so dig this forum!