The Coolest Pieces of Gear We Tested This Week

Swapping out a watch’s original straps is one of the easiest ways to refresh a timepiece on a tight budget. We’ve had our Seiko SNJ025 for a while—commonly referred to as the Solar Arnie because it looks a lot like the Seiko H558-5009, the analog-digital watch Arnold Schwarzenegger wore in Commando and later in Predator—but the rubber band it comes with adds chunkiness to an already dense timepiece. To lighten up the look, and feel on our wrist, we swapped in Shinola’s 22mm nylon strap and it couldn’t have been easier.

Technically you might want to use a watchmaker’s tool to remove the watch’s spring bars that hold the band in—but we got by just fine using a paper clip. Shinola’s replacement bands come with spring bars stitched in and that makes loading them in securely a snap. Pull back on a ball, compress the spring held inside the band, slip the band between the watch’s lugs, then let go—give it a tug to double-check.

The gray band we used (they offer about a dozen colors) has a comfortable 115 x 75mm strip of nylon which is much thinner than the original Seiko rubber. The buckle is polished to a satin finish with some heavy-duty stitching, and we’re sure it would survive a romp through the jungle hunting down an alien invader.—Sal Vaglica, Men’s Journal contributor

[$160; shinola.com]

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