Horological Meandering

I thought that I would contribute to this thread seeing as I have been wearing this watch as my daily beater for the last couple of years, since they were originally offered. Splitting and stacking wood, hunting, working on the tractor, swimming, salt water, diesel fuel, StarSan, whatever. it has been through a few straps in that time.

I had three of the original silicone straps. I never thought that they pinched or were difficult to put on. It was important to order the appropriate size I suppose.

At first I thought that the design was less than secure, that it might "pop" off at an inopportune time as easily as it popped on. However this only happened once, when a hose clamp came between the strap and the metal buckle. This new design looks like it solves that by putting the short strap on the inside with no large buckle to snag.

In the end the old "Silicon" straps proved to be less than reliable for a completely different reason. Possibly due to harsh solvents? Sure, but if you are disinfecting your watch or changing the strap frequently you might encounter the same sort of failure. They each eventually fell apart, first at the keepers and then at the end that slides into the watch case (terminal failure).

The silicone essentially breaks down over time. You can see little bits missing all along the strap edge and then eventually splits at stress points. At $30 a strap I would not consider it an issue however. And again, this is after what I would consider hard use.

Luckily, when I purchased the watch Alfred or Ashley set me up with an alternative, a couple sets of the  screw bars. One set was polished and I felt like the shiny look did not match the watch. Actually, I would prefer a PVD set but St Gallen said that they do not have any like this. 22mm leather straps with a traditional (PVD coated) buckle seemed to have been more reliable (for me). But again, a good quality leather strap does coast plenty more than $30 and has it's own faults.

What the silicone straps have over a leather strap is they are easier to clean, they do not soak up sweat, sap, dirt, blood, or?... and start to smell bad, and you can wear it looser without the watch flopping around or sliding down on your wrist due to the grippy nature. The redesign looks well thought out. I like the longer keeper and moving the stud to the inside was smart.

-xtype