The One Tool You Need to Change Your Watch Strap This Summer

Changing your watch strap or bracelet is one of those relatively simple operations that anyone should be able to do at home. With a little practice and know-how, it’s possible to learn how to change most straps, which is especially handy heading into summer when you’ll want to swap out your leather strap for a nice cool rubber or NATO strap.

And there’s one tool that makes the job much easier, and that’s the humble spring bar tool.

A watch’s strap or bracelet is almost always held in place by two small steel spring-loaded bars that fit between the lugs called spring bars, and while removing them doesn’t necessarily always require a dedicated tool, using one certainly makes the operation a whole loteasier.

Many of these tools also come with a micro-flathead screwdriver or a push-pin tool for use in removing links from bracelets, making them even more useful in your strap-changing adventures.

How We Tested

Photo by Chandler Bondurant for Gear Patrol

There are many, many spring bar tools available on the likes of Amazon, and they’re worth exploring. Many brands, especially microbrands, will even send you a free one when you buy a strap. Below, however, are the best spring bar tools we’ve actually tested and that survived our own demanding strap-changing lifestyles.

To learn more about our testing methodology and how we evaluate products, head here.

Best Overall Spring Bar Tool

Amazon

Bergeon 6111 Heavy Duty Metal Spring Bar Tool

• $40 at Amazon

This is the prototypical heavy-duty spring bar tool. Manufactured by Swiss outfit Bergeon, the 6111 features reversible tips: one with a small forked end for removing spring bars and a pointed end for removing bracelet link pins, and the second featuring a larger forked end and a straight end. The tool also has a knurled handle for an easy and secure grip and will work on just about any watch you can throw at it.

Best Upgrade Spring Bar Tool

Hodinkee

Hodinkee Silver Spring Bar Plier Tool

• $199 at Hodinkee

Normally, a spring bar tool has a single forked end that’s used to remove one end of the spring bar at a time, but this model manufactured by Bergeon for Hodinkee has double forked ends, meaning you can release both ends of a spring bar simultaneously. What’s more, you can adjust the distance between the two ends as well as the forks themselves. This is a heavy-duty aluminum tool made for the serious watch lover, and though it’s certainly not cheap, it’s one of the best you can buy.

Best All-in-One Spring Bar Tool

Worn & Wound

Worn & Wound Strap-Changing Multi-Tool

• $34 at Windup Watch Shop
  $38 (11% off)

This ergonomic and convenient Worn & Wound model features two capped ends, each of which holds a reversible bit that doesn’t require re-threading — simply pop it out of the tool, reverse it, and pop it back in, and it’s held in place with a gasket. You get a .8mm poker, a 1.6mm fork, a 1.4mm flat-head screwdriver and an additional 1.8mm flat-head. The poker works on drilled lugs, the fork is for standard lugs, and the screwdrivers work for lug bars, bezels, bracelet links and more. Each end has a screw-on cap to protect it (and prevent the tips from destroying your backpack).

Best Spring Bar Tool Kit

Everest Bands

Everest Travel Oyster Spring Bar Tool Kit

• $27 at Everest Bands

This kit consists of a thick plastic sleeve with two tools, one of which is a heavy-duty, knurled 5-inch tool with a reversible stainless steel tip featuring both forked and pointed ends. The second tool is a jeweler’s mini flat-head screwdriver with a 1.6mm tip, made for installing or removing screws on watch bracelets. Though this tool kit doesn’t feature the same innovation factor as some of the more original spring bar tools above, you’re getting two dedicated, purpose-built heavy-duty tools that you’d have to work pretty damn hard to wear out. Everest intends for you to use these on Rolex and Tudor watches, but they’ll work just as well on many other brands, too.

How to Use a Spring Bar Tool

Photo by Chandler Bondurant for Gear Patrol

These are very simple instruments with, at their most basic, a forked end that allows you to pry spring bars from between your watch’s lugs. Many have a different size tool at each end or another tool, like a pusher pin, and some are removable/reversible to add even more functionality. We’re going to discuss how to use its most fundamental feature: the forked tip for classic spring bar removal.

Spring bars are spring-loaded metal tubes that hold the strap in place between a watch’s lugs. They fit into tiny holes on the inside of a watch’s lugs. When changing a strap you need to remove them from these holes, and this is where the spring bar tool comes in.

Removing Spring Bars: The end of the spring bar which fits into the lug’s holes should have grooves where the spring bar tool can find purchase. You’ll want to keep the tool at 90 degrees while applying inward pressure, rather than using a prying motion that could scratch the lugs. This can be fiddly and take a few tries (and you might find yourself also pushing against the strap material itself), but you should be able to feel when it pops out. Try to release the spring’s tension slowly so that the spring bar doesn’t go flying (it happens anyway).

Replacing Spring Bars: Place one end of the spring bar in one of the lug holes. Line the other end up with the other hole from the underside of the watch’s lugs (because there’s always a chance for scratches, and you don’t want them on the top of the lugs) and compress the spring bar to fit it between the lugs. You can use the spring bar tool for this, but a dedicated tool often isn’t necessary. Once you’ve got the spring bar between the lugs, carefully move it toward the hole until you hear and feel it click into place. Double-check that it’s secure.

Note: If you have a very expensive watch and are afraid of scratches even on the inside of the lugs, have a professional do it.

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