Vanessa wrote in message
oups.com...

How do we adjust a too-large stainless steel watch band?
(It's not obvious.)

Yeah, I basically removed a couple of the links.

I bought, at CostCo, the Wenger Swiss Military 200m water
proof watch for my teen-age son's birthday for about 30 dollars
(as he wants to learn how to scuba dive in Monterey Bay).

His thin wrist in no way fits this Wenger watch band,

Yeah, I had the same problem.

even wearing his wetsuit, in so much as at least two links need
to be removed from the stainless steel watch band, one on each
side. Instructions supplied with the blister pack do not explain
how to adjust the band (presumably it's so simple that we should
be able to figure it out by ourselves using a butter knife)???

Not really, but it isnt rocket science.

His new Wenger Swiss Military watch band has six links on each
side, with two (I'll guess they're called) pins holding them together.

Mine had fold over metal bits with each link.

The three lower links on each side each have a 2 mm arrow embossed
into the center of the backside of the plates (for whatever reason, I don't
know). My son suspects that arrow is telling us the direction in which
to remove the pins holding the links to the watch band.

Further evidence these six links are the remove-me links are
the fact that a pin of some sort can be seen on a side view
of the Wenger watch band for these "arrowed" links only.

Sounds plausible.

Problem is - how do we remove those 'pins'? If we punch them out with
an incredibly small punch (the pins seem to be about a half millimeter
in diameter), won't we ruin them? I mean, what holds them in? Friction?

Some have a spring loaded inner pin at each end.

If it's friction, won't we need new pins when we punch
out the old ones (presumably stripping the heads)?

The other thing is these arrows are not symetrical in
that they are only lined up with one of the two pins per
link (that is, there is only one arrow per link and that
arrow is under only one of the pins per the link).

Am I missing something fundamental here?

Yes, http://www.wengerna.com/faq.jsp?cat_id=1#add_links

What's the trick to removing and replacing
two links in a steel watch band?

Looks like there is a special tool that does it.