Wooden Watchband

A few years ago, my sister and I went on a trip to visit China. While there, I bought a beautiful watch. However, it didn't take long before the band fell to pieces. (I guess it really was "made in China") I still loved the watch head though, so figured I might as well make a quality band myself.

What you will need for this project:

-Wood of your choice

-Elastic Cord

-A Watch Head

-Super Glue

-Basic wood-working tools

For this project, I used some scraps of purple heart wood that I had lying around. Almost any type of wood is suitable for this project, but hard woods will make for a more durable band.

Because I used scraps for this project, it was somewhat challenging to cut it into strips. Using the table saw and hand saw it possible to get the job done.

Once the strips are cut out, measure and mark where you want to cut them. This will determine how wide your watchband is.

There are two way to cut the strips up. I tried the chop saw, but then went to the hand saw as it does a neater job, and the pieces don't go flying.

Once the peices are all cut to size, they will need holes drilled on each side for the elastic to go through. I started by making a little jig on the drill press, making it easy to drill the hole in the correct spot.

Two of the pieces also need to be drilled through the long way (these ones will go up against the pins of the watch head) and then chiseled to make a sort of covering for the watch pins.

For sanding, I started with 80 grit, then 150 grit, and then 220 grit. Then I finished off by buffing the pieces with the dremel. Once all the pieces were nice and smooth, I sealed them up with a layer of varnish. Wood sealing oil would also work great for this.

It will be the easiest to understand how to assemble the watch by looking at the pictures. When tying off the elastic string, be sure that you don't pull the strings so much that there is no stretch left.

To hide the knots from the elastic cord, I drilled slightly bigger holes into one of the wood pieces and then pulled the knots into the holes.

I also added some super glue to the elastic by the watch pins, just to hold everything neatly in place.

That's it folks! The finished product!