FROM THE BENCH: Bracelet Sizing

So you bought a new Oak & Oscar (congratulations!) on a bracelet and the first thing you want to do when it arrives is slap it on, right?

Well unless you’re Triple-H*, you’ll need to take some links out of the bracelet first.

It’s pretty straightforward to size one of our bracelets, and you can do it yourself at home. We use screws in all of our links and include a screwdriver tool in the package, so you can put away your pin and hammer set—this is a calmer operation.

In fact, we even have a video showing you how to do it!

Before taking anything apart, get a rough measurement of your wrist size.

If you know it already, great! If you don’t, take a piece of string, twine, shoelace, whatever and wrap it around your wrist. Don’t pull it too tight, but pull it taut-enough like you’d wear a watch.

Measure the length between the end of the string and the bit that it touches wrapped around your wrist.

Most wrists are somewhere between 155-215 mm circumference (6”-8 1/2” if we must speak American), so if you get a wildly different measurement, try again.

To loosen the screws, first set the bracelet securely on the table or desk in front of you. I recommend using the little suede “bracelet saver” that we include in the package as a grippy and non-marking working surface.

Take the bracelet tool (or a 1.20 mm watchmaker’s screwdriver if you’re fancy), and, once you make sure the screwdriver head is firmly in the slot and perfectly perpendicular to the bracelet, turn the screw firmly counterclockwise.

As a very loose guideline, to fit a 165 mm wrist, take out 6 links, 4 from 6:00 and 2 from 12:00. For a 175 mm wrist, take out 5 links, 3 from the 6:00 side, and 2 from the 12:00 side. For a 185 mm wrist, take out 4 links, 3 from 6:00 and 1 from 12:00. You can hopefully see the pattern.

There’s a method to this pattern. Typically we try to “balance” the bracelet on your wrist.

Counter to what you might expect, a watch will center to the clasp on the bottom of your wrist, not the watch on the top. We want to remove links in such a way that the clasp is properly centered beneath the watch head when the bracelet is hanging loose, which will keep the watch centered on top of your wrist.

It’s also OK to unbalance the bracelet slightly—not everyone’s wrist is totally flat on top, and comfort is the priority—but if you do, try to unbalance towards the 6:00 side. If the clasp is pulled slightly towards 6:00, it will once again center to the bottom of the wrist but will pull your watch towards you. This can make the watch easier to read, and helps protect it from banging on door frames and the like.

Make sure you have our tool-free quick-adjust clasp set somewhere in the middle of its adjustment range while you’re trying the watch on. You want to be able to loosen and tighten it once the bracelet is sized. To adjust the clasp, just pull up on the end link, slide it to the proper adjustment point, and click it back down. Couldn’t be easier.

Once you have the bracelet properly sized, secure those screws! I recommend Loctite 290 (green threadlocker), though Loctite 248 (blue threadlocker) will also work.

Dab a tiny amount into the threaded hole on the link, tighten the screw, loosen the screw again to draw all the Loctite into the threads, and then finally fully tighten it.

I don’t recommend putting Loctite on the threads of the screw before installing it, by the way, since the Loctite can smear into the rest of the link and leave it feeling stiff.

If you don’t have Loctite, I highly recommend getting some, or taking your bracelet to a watchmaker/jeweler who can put some in for you. Screws have a habit of backing themselves out over time, no matter how tight you turn them.

Of course, if you’re local to the Chicago area, or just want to visit the 3rd-largest city in America, you can always make an appointment and we’ll be happy to size the bracelet for you!

That’s about it. Wear and enjoy. And if you are a former or current pro wrestler, we do have additional links to accommodate your twenty-four inch PYTHONS!

*This happened to me at a previous job at a jewelry store. We were sizing a new watch and the order came down for additional links, which is typically absurd. It turns out that the store had a robust clientele of WWE performers, who don’t tend to have dainty wrists.