F1 advice please..

Kenneth Innes

Hi, I’m new to the forum although I’ve used advice from feeds in the past when researching and always found the advice spot on. I have an older style F1 that has a broken strap. The cross bars have broken holding the strap to the watch and also the buckle has some problems I’m not sure can be fixed. I’m assuming a new watch to strap spring bar shouldn’t be too hard to replace. The buckle is the big problem, when I put a new spring bar (cheep one from a watch shop) into the buckle, the end of the spring bar pokes through the hole that’s meant to house it and won’t allow the buckle to close properly, it’s like the hole is too wide and the whole end of the spring bar comes through. Can anyone help me with the following questions please? Any jeweller I go to want to send the watch away and charge a fortune just to get an estimate.
= can any spring bar be used with a Tag watch or do you have to use Tag genuine parts?
= do Tag spring bars have larger heads? Is this why generic spring bars poke through?
= is there a genuine Tag parts website I can buy parts from?
= should I buy a new buckle?
Thank you so much, any advice would be great,
All the best,
Kenneth

Aquagraph

Do you live near a Debenhams with an 'In Time' store? I had a problem with a 6000 clasp recently, whereby the adjustment pin for the clasp was stuck. The 6000 series clasp is tapered (which causes problems because the pin needs to work with non parallel sides) but once I'd unstuck the pin they produced a huge array of pins and eventually found one that worked. Very reasonable prices as well. 👍

Kenneth Innes

That sounds like my sort of fix! Thanks a lot, I’ll give it a go next time I’m in town. Beaver brooks although very helpful wanted £25 to send it to Tag and then I’m sure the costs would escalate rapidly! Just wanted to try a few cheaper options first. All the best,
Kenneth