Rubber B Strap Easy-Link Easy Mod

[EEpro]

For those of us who have models (GMT, Daytona etc) without the glide lock version of the strap, I was curious if I could modify the Rubber B to use it with the easy link.

The only concern I had was the strength of the remaining rubber in the narrower form factor. But as you can see on the 6 o'clock side they've only used a small strip of what appears to be unreinforced rubber. It's very stretchy / flexible and I doubt it has a metal mesh inside or they would include that in their sales pitch as they do for the submariner version.



I initially trimmed the excess rubber bracelet to length such that it would have worked well on my wrist in the very last micro-adjust hole. We will be adding length with the easy link. Then using the easy link as a guide I trimmed the shape to mate with the easy link using very sharp mini scissors and a fresh razor for fine tuning. I also used the bracelet tweezers to make it easy to move the bracelet inside the clasp. The punch was used just to push the screw out of the very tight rubber bracelet as I made fine tuning adjustments.



When trimming I was careful to end each cut before reaching the corner leaving a small chamfer of rubber material. This is important so that you're not seeding a small tear in that corner. Once the fit was good I stretched the rubber and inspected the corners at 3x for any cut / crack propagation. When trimmed and reassembled it looked like this.



Here's a picture of the clasp reassembled with easy link in and out.



And the test hike where I needed to pop the easy link for comfort when I heated up.



20 minute job total. The interface from rubber to easy link is very firm as the material is thicker than the 6 o'clock side. Disclaimer: you are responsible for any damage you cause to your own rubber b or Rolex up to and including it falling off because you over-cut the rubber.

Overall I'm very happy that I can have some adjustability in this bracelet. The clearance for tweezers in the clasp is a nice new feature as it was previously occluded by the rubber.

Brad

[kieselguhr]

Strong work! Looks great. It ought to be an option from the get go.

[Lawrence.]

Looks Great! I'm considering doing this to mine as I really miss the easy link feature. Any updates on how that's holding up? Also, did you have a hard time getting the screw through the modded strap?

[synrrgy]

That's pretty neat, may try that with my Rubber-B strap.

[Smobews]

Nicely done