Oh No - my GST suffered catastrophic bracelet failure :'(

The bracelet clasp broke today. Guess I will have to order a new one.
Not a great way to start the year
[](s1335.photobucket.com/user/regnimelf3717/media/IWC/63E8DE7A-4CF2-4E2C-A7E0-8AC12FC63B3A_zps3hfd0yz5.jpg.html)

[](s1335.photobucket.com/user/regnimelf3717/media/IWC/9B2821EA-BB5E-4306-8D08-8EF5C9ECE595_zps2k86clvz.jpg.html)

Ooops, thats indeed a little bit of a bad start. How did that happen and how old was it (or how often did you wear it?)

Cheers Chris

Thanks Chris for the commiseration.
It's 12 years old and gets a fair amount of wear as it is in regular rotation with my other watches.

Bumped it against a door.

Well, bad luck but it explains a lot. Think positiv and look forward to facelift with a new bracelet.

Wish you a happy new year, for the rest of the year ;-)

Cheers Chris

Ouch... still, you're lucky to pick all the bad luck for the year right in it's beginning :o)

No panic Mark, it is easy to repair.

You can order the broken item as a sparepart.

But those GST bracelets have another problem, the pins for mounting/dismounting the links.

Often those pins can not be activated anymore, if they were not cleaned regularly.

Regards

HEBE

Oh, sorry to see it Mark.

Will you take this opportunity to send it to Schaffhausen for a spa treatment or just try to purchase a replacement bracelet?

I'll send you an email to catch up.

Buggar!!! Up at 6 to get to the airport. Catch you this arvo.

Cheers,

Jarrod

Excellent Jarrod! Looking forward to it

I'm on my way to AD now.
Thanks for the info regarding the pins. I've kept the bracelet very clean and I share this watch with my daughter, so links come in and out on a regular basis. I also make a summer/winter adjustment as well. So far all the pins seem to be working

Ouch, how very unfortunate! How is such a thing possible, is this metal fatigue? I thought these bracelets to be virtually indestructible.

However, I have a GST bracelet myself, in titanium. I noticed of course that the different links of this bracelet don't bend all the way, like the one for the Ingenieur AMG. Of course it bends enough to accomodate the shape of the wrist, but not much more: I always wondered if the links could break when applying pressure on them when bending. At the time I wore the GST I thought a strap to be more flexible, less prone to damage.

Good luck, I hope the bracelet can be repaired. It looks like it had an active life, a new part will look funny the first few months!

Kind regards,
Paul

I've had the steel pin holding the two folding sections of the clasp fall out. see; Aquatimer Chrono/Motorcyles and IWC replaced the clasp.

Cheers from the cellar

Hi Anthony
Nice to hear from you :-) No, the watch won't need a Spa, I'm just going to order a new clasp from AD. The rest of the bracelet is fine.

Hi Paul, as you say, I'm sure the damage was caused due to the lack of flex in the bracelet. The second pic makes the bracelet look a lot worse than it is. It has received desk diving scratches only, and is after all 12 years old. New clasp will be ordered on Monday.

Hello Mark,

My IWC GST deployant has broken too.
Can you please let me know how much did the deployant cost?
Best Regards,
Theo

Hi Theo
I replied via email

How remiss off me to not report on the successful replacement of my GST buckle. I dropped the watch of at my AD and 2 weeks later I collected it with a shiny new buckle. Now I'm thinking of sending the broken one to a Jewellers to laser weld as a spare.
[](s1335.photobucket.com/user/regnimelf3717/media/IWC/9EB60A18-465E-40D7-95A4-85456F3B67AC_zpsvmxvniiq.jpg.html)

Well done, looks great!

Kind regards,
Paul