Illinois hand removal question.

[Urtid]

Hi!

Im about to clean the dial on an 18s Illinois pocket watch from around 1883. I have a hand puller and I have removed a lot of pocket watch hands, but I have never seen anyone looking like this (see picture, sorry about the bad quality). I really dont want to damage the, minute hand, canon pinion or dial so I thought that i better ask for advice before proceding. So do i just pull it up or is there som sort of trick to this one. Any info would be greatly appriciated.

/Peter

[ben_hutcherson]

It pulls off like any other hand.

The only thing sort of tricky is that, since the minute hand is keyed to the cannon pinion, reinstalling the hands requires a little bit of forethought to get everything lined up right.

Before you install the hour hand, install the hour hand and turn it(using the key) until it points exactly to 12. Then, pull the minute hand, and install the hour hand aligned exactly at 12. You can then reinstall the minute hand, and everything should line up.

This is my self-taught method for getting the hands right on a keywind-there are probably other methods out there that work equally as well if not better.