How to remove pressed on wheel? Specific tool?

[Charette]

Hi all,

I'm currently working on a Cyma (apologies, unable to post a photo at this moment, will come back later to add) which has a wheel with an extended pivot that passes through the barrel bridge and there is another wheel pressed onto the extension.

Is there a specific tool to remove this pressed on wheel? It is too small as to allow the presto tool between the spokes - cannot slip anything under without putting angled pressure. To remove I ended up just taking off the bridge and as the bridge came up it popped the wheel off. 

Just checking if there is a more correct way to do this? I am on the reassembly phase now, I was thinking I would press back on with hand press tools.

Thank you!

[LittleWatchShop]

Taking a SWAG here...is it the 386?  Yeah that looks small.  Bergeon makes a tool that might work.  But as you read this thread, notice @nickelsilveris not too fond of it--an important data point.  But, in this instance, it might work.  I have one...but rarely use it.

Edited December 16, 2022 by LittleWatchShop

[thor447]

What you're looking for is a Bergeon 30638-3, or it's equivalent from another brand.  A normal presto will not fit, but this one has thinner feet that will fit inside the wheel.  It is specifically designed to remove these wheels with an odd number of spokes (usually 5).  I bought one, but have only used it twice.  It's a single function tool, and overpriced, but it seemed to do the job safely.

 

Edited December 16, 2022 by thor447

[Charette]

I appreciate the replies, thank you.

Best I can tell this movement is an R.420. Added a photo of that pressed on wheel.

That Bergeon tool is a pricey one, but I guess they are all. I am still mainly a Chinese tool guy . At least I know the name of what I may be looking for now though. 

 

[HectorLooi]

58 minutes ago, Charette said:

That Bergeon tool is a pricey one, but I guess they are all. I am still mainly a Chinese tool guy . At least I know the name of what I may be looking for now though.

There is no Chinese tool for this because as far as I know, the Chinese way of dealing with this is to remove the train bridge with the free wheel attached, then using the fingers to hold the wheels on either side and gently twist the wheel off. I've tried it and it works.

[ColdWind]

Well I'm also a Chinese tool guy. So I came up with my own idea to deal with these wheels. I made this pair of levers for them only. You can see I got the idea from hand lever. It works no matter how many spokes the odd wheels have. I also made my own hand levers. You could give this a try if you want it really simple 

[Neverenoughwatches]

6 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

There is no Chinese tool for this because as far as I know, the Chinese way of dealing with this is to remove the train bridge with the free wheel attached, then using the fingers to hold the wheels on either side and gently twist the wheel off. I've tried it and it works.

Exactly how i do it now after trying to pry the wheel off with an incorrect tool and snapping the extended pivot

2 hours ago, ColdWind said:

Well I'm also a Chinese tool guy. So I came up with my own idea to deal with these wheels. I made this pair of levers for them only. You can see I got the idea from hand lever. It works no matter how many spokes the odd wheels have. I also made my own hand levers. You could give this a try if you want it really simple 

Never got around to making them, inspired to do that now. Prefer levers , there just seems more control with them than presto tools.

[JohnR725]

The problems come up in the past and yes we have discussed the tools if you just find them doing the searchThis is one that I found

https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/24142-how-do-i-remove-this-and-help-with-identification/

 

 

 

[mikepilk]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:39 PM, LittleWatchShop said:

Taking a SWAG here...is it the 386?  Yeah that looks small.  Bergeon makes a tool that might work.  But as you read this thread, notice @nickelsilveris not too fond of it--an important data point.  But, in this instance, it might work.  I have one...but rarely use it.

This highlights the difference between those repairing watches for a living, and those of us at home doing it for a hobby. 
If I was doing it on someone else's watch (or I bought say, an expensive Rolex), then of course I would buy the Bergeon presto tools. 

As I have only had to remove these wheels on a couple of occasions, I decided it wasn't worth the expense.  I have used 2 razor blades to lever the wheel off, which worked OK. But sometimes there isn't space to get the blades under and lever. 

I then bought the 2-pronged Bergeon tool 6016. I find it useful for removing wheels and hands. But I am aware of the dangers. As the prongs are tapered, it doesn't lift totally vertically, and I always slip some paper under the wheel to avoid scratching.

If I could find a cheap (but useable) Chinese version of the presto tools, I'd buy them

[fellerts]

The Elgin 539 has a similar setup, and the technical maintenance manual suggests to remove the barrel bridge with the two wheels still attached and using a pin vice to pull them apart. It worked very well for me, but someone more experienced should comment to say whether this is an archaic and risky way of doing it  though I would share anyway.

[LittleWatchShop]

27 minutes ago, fellerts said:

the technical maintenance manual suggests

That manual is a pretty cool document.  It specifies Elgin 56A oil...the precursor to 56B.

[Neverenoughwatches]

24 minutes ago, fellerts said:

The Elgin 539 has a similar setup, and the technical maintenance manual suggests to remove the barrel bridge with the two wheels still attached and using a pin vice to pull them apart. It worked very well for me, but someone more experienced should comment to say whether this is an archaic and risky way of doing it  though I would share anyway.

I would say something that is just thin enough to get under that central hub rather than reaching under the full wheel is the safest option. I think maybe east to distort the wheel if pressure is placed anywhere on the outside of it. I use acupuncture needles a lot for different things and have made some good oilers from them. They flatten and bend well without breaking. This may be their next use.

[LittleWatchShop]

Coincidentally, I am wearing one of my 539s today!

[fellerts]

2 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Coincidentally, I am wearing one of my 539s today!

That NOS strap is awesome. I thought they were olive green though?

Sorry for derailing this thread.

[LittleWatchShop]

29 minutes ago, fellerts said:

That NOS strap is awesome. I thought they were olive green though?

Sorry for derailing this thread.

All I can say is that it came with a NOS case.  I would have expected OD as well.  I looked at the document you referred to above and it shows this band in shape with the distinctive pointed strap.

[mikepilk]

3 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Coincidentally, I am wearing one of my 539s today!

 

Is that paint or radium on the hands?  If it's radium, there's a lot of it. Stand back ! 

[LittleWatchShop]

20 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

Is that paint or radium on the hands?  If it's radium, there's a lot of it. Stand back ! 

It is paint, but I am not afraid of radium.

[Charette]

On 12/18/2022 at 10:54 PM, HectorLooi said:

There is no Chinese tool for this because as far as I know, the Chinese way of dealing with this is to remove the train bridge with the free wheel attached, then using the fingers to hold the wheels on either side and gently twist the wheel off. I've tried it and it works.

I have had to put the wheel on and off a few times now, have to backtrack a bit, and I am basically doing this - stopping the train from spinning with some peg wood and then spinning the pressed on wheel. It works well. Thanks for the tip!

[Waggy]

On 12/19/2022 at 12:06 PM, ColdWind said:

Well I'm also a Chinese tool guy. So I came up with my own idea to deal with these wheels. I made this pair of levers for them only. You can see I got the idea from hand lever. It works no matter how many spokes the odd wheels have. I also made my own hand levers. You could give this a try if you want it really simple 

So after snapping another pinion I decided to bite the bullet and get a Bergson 30638-3 5 spoke presto tool... But everywhere is out of stock and i tapped out of eBay bids when the bidding got crazy. So inspired by the above I found these on Ali express, link here. Let me known what you think.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Waggy

[HectorLooi]

Those are hand lifters. How do you intend to use it to remove a 5 spoke free wheel?

[rehajm]

Gee- I think I’ve used my Bergeon blue a dozen times in the fifty or so watches I’ve worked on. Not a single pivot was harmed in my ham handed service. One of my better tool investments. I guess its just the movements I’ve worked on…

Edited October 12, 2023 by rehajm

[Neverenoughwatches]

2 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

Those are hand lifters. How do you intend to use it to remove a 5 spoke free wheel?

Depends how thin and far reaching the ends are, they dont look particularly. The aim is to prise up from the hub rather than the wheel itself which easily bends

[rossjackson01]

Kalle on Chronoglide showed a way for removing such wheels. He said he was shown it by his original tutor who never used any tool.  Using two pieces of peg wood, ease the tips under the wheel centre and rotate the wheel with small movements, applying gentle pressure toward the centre. He said it always works.

I tried this on three pressure fit wheels that were tight. I cannot afford the Presto tool. Each took over 4 minutes, but it did work, and no distortion to the wheels. 

What he said is that he uses the Presto tool for time saving. He presto, it's off. 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by rossjackson01
Grammar

[JohnR725]

29 minutes ago, rossjackson01 said:

He said he was shown it by his original tutor who never used any tool. 

Many times people do things without tools because are unaware that they exist. Or their cheap and they don't want to buy the tool. So if whatever they're doing works for them fine but if it doesn't work and as you're aware In watch repair breaking things could get very expensive very fast or in some situations breaking things you can throw the watch away then it may be the investment in a tool is worthwhile To avoid destroying something.

For instance here's an interesting discussion.

What's interesting with the Swiss and tools for watch repair our quantity of tools appears to be shrinking. For instance this particular tool used to come in three different sizes and now you just get one size.

Then there is the other problem with tools unfortunately one tool is not necessarily the perfect solution in every single situation. Often times you need more than one type of tool and even occasionally sometimes they may not work.

Oh and then for people unhappy that they should have a tool ideally you should have both of them. But I think I only have one of these so the one for six spokes isn't very common.

 

Now back to findability of tools and their existence. When I went to the bergeon Website to get you images and possibly the PDFs there is a minor problem as I pointed out how did I find the tools? The 6016 was easy as it's currently sitting in front of me. Formulate it was at work both the tools rough work but I work in a interesting location where personal tools apparently are really personal and they go missing from time to time. As I almost never use these tools the government typically doing pocket watches I decided to bring them home where they would be safe. So it makes it a lot easier to find the tool if I have the part number.

So let's look what happens when we go to the website which you can find here by the way

https://www.bergeon.swiss/

So initially looking for 6016 we get to this page

https://www.bergeon.swiss/outil-ideal-pour-enlever-les-roues-intermediaires-forme-fourchette-o-1-20-mm.html

You can see the tool is description and get a PDF section of the catalog which ideally should be helpful if there were other tools but there are other tools just not for this particular wheel. Okay so let's do a search for their description Of intermediate wheels Which reveals it's the only tool layout of? At wasn't very helpful wasn't seeing as how I knew the other tools existed. Okay on the description we have another word or two if we try those Transmission wheels of chronographs Of course you only have one tool

Then because I knew the wheel was called the sweep wheel if we do a search for sweep wheel remover we get this link

https://www.bergeon.swiss/catalogsearch/result/?q=We+wheel+remover

Which is? Very incredibly not helpful as they appear to be hand removers only? Now we know why of course nobody has any tools because are a tool Log website has lots of tools finding the tools is impossible unless you know they already exist. So looking at the webpage let's pick a tool not a random but I'll pick one looks relevant like this

https://www.bergeon.swiss/outil-presto-pour-enlever-les-roues-sur-petites-moyennes-et-les-roues-entraineuses-des-chronographes.html

Notice there really obsessed with this tool is a hand removing tool and I have no idea how you'd remove a hand with a tool not actually designed for hand removing. But you can get a PDF on this page of a section of the catalog where it correctly describes the use of the tools makes me wonder about the people in the catalog department whether they even know what they're selling

Oh and thinking of catalogs having the physical catalog or tactically catalogs because at the time I got mine they were in three separate huge books. Really nice to look through today you can downloaded as a PDF. That is found at the link below This will give you light reading of hundreds plus pages as I said it well worth looking through the catalogs occasionally just to see what's out there that you might possibly need as soon as You have an inheritance or when the lottery as unfortunately some of the tools can be rather pricey. But still worth the look in the catalog.

https://www.bergeon.swiss/download/item/

 

 

 

 

 

[rossjackson01]

John. You highlighted as quote "He said he was shown it by his original tutor who never used any tool." Sorry if I gave the wrong information. If I can expand. What he said was that the tutor preferred not to use the Presto tool, but to do it the peg wood way. The tutor taught his pupils whilst never using the presto tool. I am sure he used many other tools. Hence Kalles expertise.