Adventures in Band Repair (B4/After photos)

[SloRolexfan]

That yacht master is gonna be a good one!

I love well worn watches!

[stanleyleecm]

Woo nice work!

[bajjer31]

This is pretty amazing! I would imagine it's pretty focused work as well

[jsukey]

For anyone who may be a little leery about shipping your watch to Michael...fear not! He sent me a FedEx prepaid label to use. The insured value was up to $9999.00. I shipped my watch out on Thursday afternoon from Fort Worth, TX. It arrived the very next day in California, and Michael signed for it himself. Proof of that was emailed to me along with his signature. He has already been in touch with me multiple times. Looks like he’s going to have to do some laser welding on one of my lugs to repair a whoops because it was too deep to polish without removing a bunch of material. Absolutely loving the attention to detail so far!

[chieftd]

Michael, do you repair ladies TT jubilee bracelets from 26mm watches? My wife has a Datejust from 1991 and the jubilee bracelet has a good bit of stretch. Great thread and thanks for posting all the photos. Awesome work with the repairs and servicing.

Cheers, Tim

[ROLLiWORKS]

We do!


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[avidflyer]

Have sent him several watches... no issues, very fast, good communication. By now (even before) no one should worry about Michael.....

[MrTremont]

Love this thread. I have three bracelets I am going to be sending for repair.
One thing I wanted to ask: I am pretty new here, maybe this has been discussed somewhere...years ago I sold a SS Oysterdate from here in Canada, to a fellow in the US. - all went well, until it went 'missing' in transit. It had been seized by US Customs and sent to a customs impound warehouse. Apparently I was breaking some sort of Rolex trademark law ... ? ... to get it back, I had to call Rolex USA Lawyers in New York and pay $300 to get the watch back. I paid, and they sent it back to me. Has anyone ever encountered anything like this?

[jsukey]

Well folks, here it is!! Couldn’t be happier with the turnout! Many thanks to Michael and his team! The complete turnaround time, including shipping was 1 day short of 4 weeks. Can’t beat that kind of service and speed!

[CNDguy]

Wow the YM looks great as with everything else. My 16234 Datejust just arrived there. Very excited!

[CNDguy]

Originally Posted by MrTremont

Love this thread. I have three bracelets I am going to be sending for repair.
One thing I wanted to ask: I am pretty new here, maybe this has been discussed somewhere...years ago I sold a SS Oysterdate from here in Canada, to a fellow in the US. - all went well, until it went 'missing' in transit. It had been seized by US Customs and sent to a customs impound warehouse. Apparently I was breaking some sort of Rolex trademark law ... ? ... to get it back, I had to call Rolex USA Lawyers in New York and pay $300 to get the watch back. I paid, and they sent it back to me. Has anyone ever encountered anything like this?

Holy smokes!? No!

[SloRolexfan]

Wow that yacht master looks brand new!

Did they put a new bezel on? Or was that repaired by them also?

[jsukey]

Originally Posted by SloRolexfan

Wow that yacht master looks brand new!

Did they put a new bezel on? Or was that repaired by them also?

They put the original bezel on a lapping machine to bring it back to where it is now.

[Car32]

Great work Mike - Do you also repair dinged/dented teeth on Sub/GMT bezel rings?

[ROLLiWORKS]

Originally Posted by Car32

Great work Mike - Do you also repair dinged/dented teeth on Sub/GMT bezel rings?

I think i’d need to see a photo. At some point this year will get our lathe indexed to recut and restored the grooves on sport bezels. In most cases recutting the grooves isnt really necessary.


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[Old Expat Beast]

Originally Posted by MrTremont

Love this thread. I have three bracelets I am going to be sending for repair.
One thing I wanted to ask: I am pretty new here, maybe this has been discussed somewhere...years ago I sold a SS Oysterdate from here in Canada, to a fellow in the US. - all went well, until it went 'missing' in transit. It had been seized by US Customs and sent to a customs impound warehouse. Apparently I was breaking some sort of Rolex trademark law ... ? ... to get it back, I had to call Rolex USA Lawyers in New York and pay $300 to get the watch back. I paid, and they sent it back to me. Has anyone ever encountered anything like this?

That was a thing until a few years ago, with sending Rolex to the US. No longer the case, fortunately.

[Wizz]

Great work!

[janice&fred]

Originally Posted by ROLLiWORKS

We do!


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We will be contacting you next week and ship our men's TT jubilee to you for tightening. Very excited to finally have a stretched bracelet so we can take advantage of your fine service!

[afmars]

Was in San Jose for work so I took the opportunity to stop in and drop off my wife’s datejust for an overhaul and polish. Awesome shop with good people and I had to buy this cool t shirt!

[Swiss2311]

Great work

[SloRolexfan]

Are you guys doing any repairs right now? Or are you closed due to Corona?

[jsukey]

Originally Posted by SloRolexfan

Are you guys doing any repairs right now? Or are you closed due to Corona?

They are currently shut down due to the ‘Rona.

[ROLLiWORKS]

Originally Posted by jsukey

They are currently shut down due to the ‘Rona.

We are indeed. We should be back in the shop on 5/4. Might take us a few days to get things back in order before really getting back to work.


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[icnbne]

Originally Posted by ROLLiWORKS

We are indeed. We should be back in the shop on 5/4. Might take us a few days to get things back in order before really getting back to work.


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Ive always been curious, with the wonders laser welding achieves, are you guys able to recreate the blunt/overpolished crowns on the 5-digits clasps?

[bhlegit]

are you guys open at the moment?

[Drrich1101]

Are you still doing this type of repair? My ss/gold oyster bracelet from my 2003 submariner is equally bad if not worse. I’ve worn it every day 24/7 since new. I’ve reached out to you on your website but have yet to hear back. Not sure if the messages even went through. At any rate, I could use your service!

[Rick Deckard]

Mike and his crew have relocated to Miami.
14 NE 1st Ave Ste 403, Miami, FL 33132

I visited him a couple of months ago and he did a superb job on a watch of mine (bracelet & service). Everything went absolutely flawless.

Their number is (408) 800-3244 and their email is help<at>rolliworks.com

[HQA Wire Products]

Looks great!

[dnr21]

Originally Posted by ROLLiWORKS

Hmmm yah based on the photo I think I may know what we ran into with that gap. From my recollection (not the best) the band landed in the 90% region overall.

During assembly replace the old knurl pins with new ones. This is usually enough to lessen the gaps. Sometimes the links themselves have material loss so the replacing pins isn't enough. From there we have to step it up by adding a sleeve (tube) that go around the pins which add additional girth thus closing the gap. Rolex uses something similar on two tone Oyster bands (but for a different reason). We take it one step further with multiple thicknesses.

But somethings the thinnest sleeve is too much and makes the link feel stiff. The gap closes too much and the links rub. It forces us to back off. We assemble the bracelet one link at a time so we also decide these thing one link at a time. We really aim for the best possible result for each link without losing the original feel.

We've been considering have an oblong shape pin that can be rotated so we have a variable adjustment. It's a thought. There are some manufacturing challenges that we would need to work through.

First, Kudos to the knowledge shared and great work done on the bracelets.

I have question on the sleeve/tube. Does Rolex gold/two t9ne solid end links Gold/two tone have them by default?

If to tighten the bands/bracelets, will it means usually in common case Scenarios to change both pins or sleeves?

Thank you.

[JacksWild]

A couple of years ago RolliWorks was recommended to me by a very fine Jeweler (Nagis) in Stamford, CT. My 40 year old Rolex Oyster Date Adjust with Jubilee bracelet needed extensive refurbishing. RolliWorks was fabulous. In addition to the watch itself, they completely rebuilt the bracelet. Their price was competitive and the work was superior.
Recently I encountered a problem with the bracelet - over a year after the intitial work. I contacted them and because I had an upcoming trip, and couldn't exist without my Rolex, they did the repair within a week - including shipping door to door.
To my knowledge, they are not a walk-in business. You ship your watch to them and they FedEx it back. I can, without reservation, recommend RolliWorks to anyone owning a Rolex watch.