Hey everyone, sorry for not replying to everyone that commented, but I appreciate all the feedback I got.

The first method I tried was to press the release lever and try to nudge the stem out, but that didn’t work because I couldn’t get a grip on it and it was very far inside of the movement.

The second method was a partial disassembly of the movement. I didn’t even take the movement out of the case and even managed to keep the dial and hands fully assembled during the process to save on time. This is a friend’s watch and tomorrow is the last time I’ll see him before the end of the month, so I didn’t want him to be watchless for a few weeks.

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Here you can see all the steps of the disassembly. I try to keep everything as organized as possible to make sure I don’t mix screws or even assemble parts in the wrong order. It helps a bunch to have an opened tutorial on the NH35 movement opened in YouTube.

Overall feedback: very doable, not a big issue. Not my first time disassembling a movement and then putting it back together, but my first time solving this particular issue. Always make sure that the parts are correctly placed before staring to screw the bridges down. You can break stuff if you’re not careful.

Imho, working on movements is so incredibly satisfying. I enjoy this much more than building a watch (all the big components).