Anyone have a mill who could machine something small for me?

[dgaddis]

Long story short :: I need two titanium watch bracelet links modified (machined) to change the clasp on a watch. Who can do this for a reasonable price? See the end of the post for a sketch.

Long story long :: I've got an Oceanus S100 which I love. But another watch of mine as a tool free quick adjust clasp, and it's really spoiled me, I want one on my Oceanus too. Oceanus makes such a clasp for some of their other models, so it'll match my watch perfectly, but it's not a direct fit, so I need to modify both bracelet links that attach to the clasp. Thankfully I need to remove material, not add any.

Here's a sketch - the red hatched region shows what needs to be removed. I would try doing this myself with some hand tools, but with it being a JDM watch replacement parts if I screw up aren't easily sourced....and I don't have a mill in my garage...sooooo.....

I don't need any finishing work, I can do that myself. I just need stuff cut off. I emailed the fine folks at RGM but I think this is too small a task for them to be bothered with, and Roland told me it's $150/hr and he doesn't know how many hours it would take. From my experience running a mill back in the day I think it would take half an hour at most, and that includes finding the right tools and whatnot.

For scale, the links are 18mm wide (left to right in the sketch). And again, titanium. We may be able to modify the clasp instead of modifying the link on the left side of the sketch, but I can talk that through without whoever I can find to do this.

Anyone y'all could recommend, or anyone here want to do it?

Red hatched areas = material to be removed

[Clyde]

Dremel?

[dgaddis]

Dremel?

If I could get replacement parts easily I'd try it myself...but I think my only way to get replacement links (those links, the end pieces) would be to buy a whole new band, which is ~$230 + shipping. It's a nice enough watch I don't want it looking like a crappy DIY garage job.

Here's my clasp.



The new clasp, the piece on the left that attaches to the center of the bracelet link is wider, ~8mm vs 6mm. On the other side the connection looks like this ::

[summilux]

You could look for a local "old-time" watch or clock repair person. Maybe someone has a Sherline.

[dgaddis]

Yesterday I took one of the spare links from my bracelet to the Work Sharp (it's a mini belt sander set up for sharpening knives). After fiddling with it a bit, I'm confident I can do what's needed myself.

Pretty interesting data point. Something I know from reading about working with titanium, but doing it yourself really puts it into perspective.

The coarsest belt I have for the Work Sharp will ruin a knife blade super super fast, even one made of modern 'super steels' know to be super hard and hard to sharpen - it just chews material off in the blink of an eye. I've only ever used it once on an actual knife, one of my mother-in-law's kitchen knives that was butter-knife dull.

That belt hardly scratches the titanium. It will remove material, but it's slow, which greatly reduces the chance of ruining something.