G-Shock Vintage model restore project - watch band

Lately I had found a few vintage model while I was browsing for a new watch collection. I stumble upon lots of vintage model, however this long aged model are all in used condition and they look like they had been wore too much without being taken care of. But then I thought to myself, how about I just grab them anyway, they all are very rare and collectible models anyway. Hence here they are,

G-Shock DW-8200 Line Hockey blue version

and

G-Shock DW-9800AR rescue team wademan

They are very different in most ways but these 2 model have the same problem. They had been damaged the same and what I mean is that their band. Specifically lower band. This 2 models' band was made from the combination of leather and canvas materials. I don't mind the canvas part but I'm really concern about the leather part of it. Leather as we all know is really durable and could last forever. But under one really hard to fulfill condition, and that is they must be taken care and treated carefully from time to time. Casio really made a good decision when they choose leather as a part of the watch band, but the problem is in the user. I have to admit, me too don't know anything about  handling leather material. I never own anything that was made out of leather.

This is the pic of the damages. It is really bad. The leather already cracked and chipped off. On the Wademan, even the canvas part had already shown up. The leather had cracked so bad that it will keep on being chipped of if I just keep wearing it like that; which is a very bad move. However, from the cracked leather at least I could see that it was made out from a really thin sheets of leather, which I doubt it can last long even without anyone wearing this watch. In the blue dw8xxx model, the band was made out of a thicker material and from the texture of it, it looks like a cow skin. Here, Casio made it thicker than the Wademan model which also had cracked but the thickness prevent it from chipped off. I have to figure out a way to fix this two different types of problem from two different material. Note that, I'm no good myself and I had never seen anyone did what I did here. All I'm doing right now is just basically 'Try and Error'. Hopefully this will work or I have just burned hundreds of cash. Okay, first thing that came to my mind is, how to fixed this and the easiest way is just glue. Yes, just stick them back to it's place or should i say patch them back with a layer of glue and hopefully it will hold all of them back into place.

This is all the items that i use in this repair project.

That is the type of bonding material that i use. This glue is made to stick several types of materials such including leather, canvas and also rubber. It is a water base glue and also are less smelly than normal glue which is perfect for this project.

This is the front side 

This is the back side. And picture below is the actual glue and also one piece plastic to spread the glue.

Alright, now lets move on to the watch. I'll show you how damage the Blue Inline Hockey band is. The most critical part is at the lower band where has cracked in half and look like it really going to break apart. While the upper band is just forgivable fine. 

First, I recognize all the part on the ban that need to glued back together and apparently almost everywhere from front back and also sides must be fixed. This band had really been damaged really bad. Thus, the process begin, Ill just show you guys how I did it. Might look sloppy but, just wing it!. This is a try and error anyway. Cheers.

Alright. Not so hard isn't it?. Now just let the glue to dry. Don't freak out, the glue just white now, and it'll turn colorless after it dried out. I also did the same thing on the Wademan model. Don't worry. you can still clearly see the part that had been glued. However, after the glued had dried out we can clearly see the difference between the glued part and also the usual matte leather look. To make both part to look even closer the same, I put wipe on some leather cream. For your information, leather cream doesn't also shine your leather, it also gives treat the leather thus gives it more protection and increase it's lifespan.

I use this type of leather cream

My first attempt at fixing this is a failed since almost every part of the leather has already cracked old. All area that ha been glued are fine but the other parts will cracked and chipped off with a few wear. So, in order to fix this problem as well, I decided to glue on even more area especially the upper part where the damage is most likely to occur since which is around the upper hole to fit the buckle at my wrist size. I tried covering more area and tried to wear it again for a day. And the result is now satisfying because I'm now able to wear with less worries. However, the glued area tend to be a little sticky on wrist and will gives a little discomfort at the first few hours only and you wouldn't even notice it after a while it has been in your wrist. 

The same discomfort had also occur on the Hockey model, but this time, since the damage aren't bad as the Wademan model, glued parts around the unwanted area could just be scrap off leaving only the inside part where the damage is, still remain glued. This way, I had totally removed the discomfort problem that I had from wearing the Wademan model.

This is just the experiment, I'm going to see how long this method could last me. I'll keep updating this blog from time to time and tell you guys the result of this try and error restore method. Until then, that's all from me now.

Final result looks like this

Thank you for visiting.

**If you guys had realise, they are actually one more big problem that is needed to be solved on the Inline Hockey model. I'll create another post on how I will fix that problem**