Just a quick video of how I removed my bottom bracket fixed cup without correct tools

[robgul]

The video is using a clamp-on-the-bench vice - far simpler is to use a bench mounted engineers vice - clamp the flats on the fixed cup in the jaws with the frame on its side and then use the frame as the lever . . . works every time. (It also works on the adjustable cup side if you can't undo that BUT either clamp the threads between 2 bits of soft wood in the vice jaws or be prepared to crush the threads and sacrifice the cup)

Rob

The flats are barely 3mm thick, very easy to pop off the vice if you consider you're giving it a hard time with torque vs contact surface, the jaws WILL twist and the cup slips off with high risk of marking the frame.
Giving that a frame respray (or fixing a dent) is not a cheap repair, I'd say is better to buy a coffee to your LBS and have them remove it

The proper tool like the Campagnolo/Cyclus/Hozan keeps the cup trapped in between the wrench outside and a screw-on barrel on the inside, so the cup has nowhere to go and can only give up. No other chance.

The clamp it in the bench vice method does need care and a BIG HEAVY vice with good, unworn jaws - and some assistance holding the frame level is useful. My experience with some pretty ancient and well-rusted cups has been good - assuming that the cup is going to move then the amount of pressure on the leverage is pretty low (obviously being a factor of the "length of the lever" - i.e. the frame)

Chances are that LBS will just have a bigger/better vice

Rob

[Gattonero]

...
Chances are that LBS will just have a bigger/better vice

Rob

If you ask me, I would trust only a shop that has a tool like this.
Perfect job, done in seconds, no damage to the cups or the frame.
With the proper tool, someone's "next-to-impossible" job becomes something so quick that could be free or done for a few pounds.
What's not to like?

[robgul]

...
Chances are that LBS will just have a bigger/better vice

Rob

If you ask me, I would trust only a shop that has a tool like this.
Perfect job, done in seconds, no damage to the cups or the frame.
With the proper tool, someone's "next-to-impossible" job becomes something so quick that could be free or done for a few pounds.
What's not to like?

Yebbut - the need for old-style BB cup removal is a small and rapidly diminishing market* - it's bad enough having to have tools for quite a few varieties of "modern" BBs.

* the, probably, 8 or so bikes that I've had over the past 15 years with cup BBs were all upgraded to Shimano square drive cartridge units. Job done. [The only use I have for cups is for thread protection in the shell when getting a respray/powder coat and then they are only screwed in about half way]
Rob

[robc02]

Speaking of welding, that is my go-to approach to knackered steel cup BBs that are going for scrap and are stuck; the heat from MIG welding helps to break the bonds of corrosion and if you weld the right thing on,.......

+1.
I weld on a piece of approx. 3 - 6mm plate, edge on - grip it in a large bench vice and turn the frame.

[Gattonero]

... it's bad enough having to have tools for quite a few varieties of "modern" BBs.
...

So it's a shop of Newbies that will have no tooling and no experience of how to use them!

The same style of tool is made by Hozan, VAR and Unior, the latter costs only £50

[robgul]

... it's bad enough having to have tools for quite a few varieties of "modern" BBs.
...

So it's a shop of Newbies that will have no tooling and no experience of how to use them!

The same style of tool is made by Hozan, VAR and Unior, the latter costs only £50

No - the shop can handle almost anything.

The tool you suggest may cost fifty quid BUT if you look at amortisation of that cost across all the old style BB cups that you have to remove (that can't be removed with a spanner on the flats) over the course of say a year - then it doesn't make business sense.

In the past 8 months that I've been working there I can only recall a handful of cup BBs that have been on bikes through the very busy workshop and they came out with a spanner.

Rob

[Gattonero]

Yet it takes only one damaged frame to ruin their reputation.

If I was to go there and they're using whatever tool they think it works but will even sol slightly scratch my frame, I'd be fuming

Again, I go to shops that have been long time in business so they'll have that tool by many years and don't have that problem, there will still be some of those bb's in the years to come as those frames are long lasting. Surely, makes less sense to invest in tools for "modern" frames, as the frames themselves are often obsolete after a few years