Was rolex looking for a patent again ?
Shoulderless spingbars will work, for drilled lugs like yours. You only need to push in one side, from the outside, with a standard pin tool and pull on the strap to release it.
Putting it back in ; first place the springbar in on the closed side, and then scratch the hell out of the open side when pushing the other side in....
better use protective film or tape on the inside lug. Uncle US or forstner sells those.
and then scratch the hell out of the open side when pushing the other side in....
I would install a shoulderless bar without the bracelet or strap, then try to remove it from the drilled lug side. There is a possibility, with the one side compressed, the bar won't angle out far enough to extract it from the non drilled through side. If you do it without a strap installed, and that winds up being the case, you can cut the bar to remove it.
Those end points dont go into the drilled lug holes as far as the shouderless ones can, so shoulderless are a better/stronger fit for drilled lug holes.
I was thinking about that. In other words, even though the drilled hole side has the capacity to accommodate a longer spring bar tip, how much is necessary for a stable fit? I haven’t measured it, but what would be the guess on the typical depth of a non through lug hole? If most shoulderless bars have a 2mm tip, I’m seeing that bars designed for closed lugs have a typical tip of about 1.0mm, and thus the depth of the hole must be just beyond that on the closed lugs?
Curious thought experiment:
If I installed a strap on a watch without drilled lugs using these. How would I remove them?
Drilling out the bar.
My watchmaker drilled out shouldered springbars as we couldn't get it out with a springbartoo, strap remained intact. So 4 is cheaper compared to 3.