Rethinking the Bund Strap, for lovers of Fixed strap Bar watches.

A special strap challenge.

I have a good friend with whom I trade advice and conversation about Land Rovers, whiskey, watches, and watch straps. Like me, he is a fixed strap bar enthusiast, and one day he asked me what it would take to build a Bund-style strap for use on his two fixed bar CWC Royal Navy divers.

The CWC “1983” quartz diver with beefy, fixed strap bars. Image (c) CWC.

There are only a few ways to do this. The simplest solution is to make a one-piece pull-thru strap that can be worn with or without the Bund pad; coincidentally, I had just made one for a customer’s Cyma WWW (below). And you can see a similar strap solution on a CWC Mellor-72 G10 in customer gallery 2 (picture 27). While the one-piece strap solution works well with a Bund pad, it can be a bit inelegant on some watches, since the strap runs under the watch where the Bund pad is also competing for space (looking at you, Benrus Type 1 or 2 Navigator).

Fixed bar Cyma WWW on one-piece pull-thru strap with Bund pad. Image courtesy of @Gramseiko.

Another way to accommodate fixed strap bars is with a single-layer two-piece strap. Imagine taking that one-piece pull-thru and snipping it in half, such that you now have a tailpiece and a buckle piece, and then fastening the cut ends onto the strap bars of the watch. If you have the watch in hand, you can sew them onto the strap bars. While very secure, it’s a permanent solution and if you change your mind or want to switch out straps for the day, you have to cut the strap off your watch.

Fixed bar Hamilton 9219 sporting a sewn-on two-piece strap with Bund pad.

The other way to fasten the two-piece strap to the watch’s strap bars is to use screw rivets, or what some folks call Chicago screws. These are stainless steel, two-piece, sexed fasteners with one side that looks like a panhead screw and one side that looks like a finished, domed rivet. Now your two-piece strap is removable, but it does convey a certain flieger personality, which might not work so well on your dive watch.

Fixed bar Lemania Tg 195 on a two-piece single-layer strap with screw rivet closures.

I thought about the problem for a bit and had an idea. What if I used an extra-long one-piece strap that could be wrapped around the watch’s strap bars and passed back through the Bund pad’s keepers? I sketched out my idea (don’t laugh) on engineering paper and couldn’t think of a reason why this wouldn’t work. But would it be simple enough to be implemented one-handed and by yourself? I didn’t know, and the only way to find out was to build one and see.

The basic idea, without buckle/keeper and Bund pad details.

Concept to prototype.

The first thing to do is make the Bund pad. I stamped the Rover Haven maker’s mark in the middle of it just for fun, and then made the XL one-piece strap, leaving the buckle and keeper off for fitting and experimentation. I tried the arrangement on my own wrist, and, satisfied that that it could work, I added a NATO buckle, a fixed fatty keeper, and a skinnier floating keeper. The strap itself is 400 mm long, quite lengthy compared to a standard one-piece of about 250 mm for a 7.5” wrist.

The Bund pad consists of a base layer and a keeper layer stitched together lengthwise.

Fitting the unfinished strap to the Bund pad.

With buckle and fixed keeper added to the strap.

Fitting a watch.

The only thing left to do was test-fit a watch head to the strap and see how easy it was to fasten the whole thing to my wrist by myself. As you can see in the pictures below, it’s fairly easily done and the result is a winner. Fair warning, though — I wouldn’t do this on a watch with very tight clearance between the apex of the case and the strap bar, and I wouldn’t do it on a watch that I change straps on often. It’s hardly a “grab-n-go” solution, but if you’re headed out for a weekend and know you won’t be changing watches, or if you tend to leave your watch/strap combo in park when you find one that works, then it’s a sturdy and stylish way to go. Here’s how you install it.

Step 1. Insert the tail end of the strap through the Bund pad’s 12 o’clock keeper and wrap it over the top of the watch’s 12 o’clock strap bar. Pass it back through the Bund pad’s keeper, exiting under the strap’s buckle.

Step 2, clockwise from upper left. Wrap tail end of strap around the back of the watch and insert it through the Bund pad’s 6 o'clock keeper, then around the watch’s 6 o’clock strap bar, coming under, up, and around it. Now fit the watch loosely to your hand or wrist.

Step 3, clockwise from upper left. With the strap loose enough to fit over your hand, cinch and adjust the strap as you move the watch back to your wrist. Insert the strap’s tail back through the Bund pad’s 6 o’clock keeper, on top of itself, and fasten the buckle as normal.

That’s it!

Your fixed bar watch is now secure, your Bund pad buffering you from the effects of the elements or your environment. You can undo it if you change your mind, and the strap hasn’t added any additional thickness to the total package. Assuming you’re already comfortable with and committed to a Bund strap, this is a fun twist on the formula and you’re not likely to see another one at your next local GTG!

Thanks for reading my blog. I always welcome your comments and feedback in the area below.