How to remove the bezel on TAG Super Professional ?

[dorianinside]

How do I do that without breaking anything? My watchmaker said that there is a possibility that if he removes the bezel he will need a new ring or something.. i have no idea.. please help :)

[Eeeb]

Well, it might break. It usually doesn't. But if it does, fashioning another would be painful and costly... of course this can be said of many things. How risk adverse are you?

[calibre 11]

Here's what it looks like without the bezel



There is an inner ring that needs to be removed before you take off the crystal, but I wonder if he is concerned about this part, or whether he means a gasket?

[dorianinside]

he is not concerned about the gasket.. but what ring can break?
and if it does, where can i buy a new one?

[David Woo]

but what ring can break?

the crystal retention ring is the one with the notches, a special tool is required to unscrew it.

[calibre 11]

Not sure why he'd be concerned that it would break? That's what made me wonder if he was thinking about a gasket. I would have thought breaking that ring was low risk....

[dmr33]

Happy to chime in here.

Near all TAG bezels are held in place with a retaining spring what sits inside a groove in the bezel. When removed it looks like a thin gauge paper clip. If you look on the bottom side of any bezel you would see it.

In my experience, this spring does not get damaged when you properly remove the bezel. However, when you remove the spring from the bezel itself, many times it will lose its proper shape and not seat correctly.

Its late or I'd post some pics... Maybe tomorrow.

Cheers,

David

[dorianinside]

The watchmaker is not concerned about the ring that unscrews the crystal, he concerned about removing the bezel. I think what David said is his concern.

David, Can you please post some pictures? :)

Thank you all.

[dmr33]

Dorian.. Here's a few pictures of a full size 1500 series bezel with retaining clip installed and an extra clip. Also added a few pics of my hefty Bergeon bezel remover (#6820) I've been able to use it to remove nearly every bezel attempted. Toughest bezel in my experience is the 2000 Exclusive Solid Gold bezel. Never got it off. Hopefully your guy has one of these.

As I stated in a direct message, I would imagine they designed the retaining clip on your SuperPro to be durable enough to endure one or two removals as it MUST be removed to access the bezel.

I should also state that I have never had to replace a clip after removing the bezel. HOWEVER, I found if you remove the clip from the bezel itself it will get a bit tweaked and may not seat properly or at least give you a bit of trouble when trying to reinstall the bezel.

Although I have not worked with this particular bezel/model, I would think you could just re use the original clip. If the watchmaker has experience with this model, then his info trumps mine.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

David

[decipher28]

nice bezel removing tool david i was thinking of getting that bergeon one how good is it.

I removed a few TAG bezels myself and there are definitely some which are more stubborn than others.Some will just pop off even with a thin knife blade although watch out for marring the case.

The inner bezel tension springs are available from watchpart.co.uk if you need a new one.They can order one for any particular model.Like david says you can tweak the spring to either make the bezel looser or tighter.Usually slighty spread or open it to make it looser and close the spring to make it tighter.

i really like these 1000metre divers