TGIF: Another Watch Bites the Dust

I can't believe how much rubber watch bands can deteriorate in a little over a decade.  I went to revive one of my older Armitron digital watches and found the band was slick, almost oily, and crumbling apart in my hands.  It made quite a mess.  Even worse, when I examined the mechanism for attaching the band to the watch, it was more than a little bit unusual.  It doesn't even look like replacing the band is really practical.  The same thing happened to one of my Structure watches.

An Armitron Digital Watch and the remnants of its band

While this watch is an inexpensive digital watch, it is kind of a bummer that the strange strap attachment mechanism and deteriorated rubber watch band have rendered it useless.  In the future, I'll try to take a close look and make sure watches I buy have a conventional lug and spring bar setup.  I might avoid some rubber watch straps, too.

Requiem for a Cheap Watch: The End of My Structure Diver-Style Watch

I was going through some of my old watches and came upon a Structure Diver-style Quartz watch that I reviewed way back in 2015.  It was a fashionable watch at one time, but it looks much sadder today. The black resin strap oxidized over the years.  It developed a white residue on some parts and the strap became brittle and broke into pieces. Apparently, rubber degrades over time and returns to a non-vulcanized state. (Sounds logical . . .)  The only thing you can do is wipe the watch strap down periodically with isopropyl alcohol.  It will clean the watch up, but it won't stop the decay.

The Remnants of a Structure Diver Style Watch.

In truth, it's a watch that I never wore much.  Although I liked it when I first bought it, the watch was clunky and a bit on the heavy side.  However, it was rapidly eclipsed by more comfortable watches from other brands. Tonight, it went out to the trash.