Sorry for the super delay... I was going through some old posts (2008!) and realized some people were interested in how I replaced my strap on my Form 1's. As many of you all probably know, the strap was made with flocking material which, pretty much gives you a foam-rot scenario. After all that time, I assumed that the strap was already a genuine piece of leather.... Oh well, I forgive you B&O.
Anyway, I went to my local textiles store (Britex) and searched for some leather with about the same characteristics. I took the strap off the headphones and brought it with me so I could do a side-by-side comparison. The strap is only heald on with 4 screws (2 on each side, see pic). After finding some leather, I was told it isn't sold by the yard (big surprise), and that the leather is sold in $300 batches (probably enough to make 1Mil replacements! So, while I was sulking around, I found a "scrap" leather bin! Luckily, there was a piece of scrap that was black, sueded on one side, pliable, and large enough to cut the a new strap (good thing I had the original with me to check that the piece was large enough). Anyway, the scrap was $5!
Basically, all I did was use the old piece as a template to cut a new piece. All you'd have to remember is choosing a good place in the leather in which to cut. I used a combination of a utility knife and scissor. I had a belt hole puncher lying around, so I used that in its smallest setting to punch hols for the screws. The most important thing to do is to cut in an ABSOLUTE straight line WITHOUT any nicks. While leather does not fray like fabric, a nick could act like a hangnail and cause the leather to rip at that point!
Once done, all that's left is to put on a new strap of genuine leather! One important note: The amoung of "give" the springs for the strap is determined by how tight you screw in the strap! The tighter the screws, the less the strap springs back into "neutral" position. PM me if this doesn't make sense!
It's really not as hard as it seems, and I'm sure someone else has done this by now. I just felt the responsibility in responding to an old post that somehow got ignored.
I'd like to see anyone who might want to do this with white leather, or red, or canvas,... that would be cool!
