Originally Posted by
wearyourtruth
i've run the shimano freewheels before, a few actually, and i've only once had much trouble getting them off...
i put a big fat flathead screwdriver (the thicker the tip the better) against the notch and tap it with a hammer counter clockwise. it's worked fine for me on 3 freewheels, the only time i had trouble was some old bmx wheel that i had no history on, but the piece of the freewheel with the notches just deformed from the screwdriver.
that said, if you're gonna go the destruction route like on the parktools website, might as well try that first...
Ummm.... the "destructive method" described by parktool is nowhere as destructive as yours. I don't even know why they call it destructive. I'd call it... reconstructive. As in, you'll have to rebuild the freewheel afterwards, but no part is actually damaged in the process, and can be reassembled.
From the story you tell, your method (which I know exactly what it is, and it's the normal way of removing freewheel when the appropriate tool doesn't exist) has the possibility of actually wrecking the poor thing. I'd use that AFTER trying the Parktool thing.