The beads were super easy to break, they damn near broke on their own. Probably because they're tube type wheels so they don't 'need' the bead retaining bump that most tubeless wheels have.
Zipties were a fail. The recess in these wheels barely accommodates one bead, both together is an absolute no go so I cut the ties off and went traditional. Holy fuck that was a battle. Even when there was only about a foot of tire bead under the wheel I still had to use tools to keep prying to get it the rest of the way off, insane. I got the front tire off and pondered how much worse the rear would probably be, at that point I said fuck it and took them to a shop, but the guy was out. After waiting for over 1/2 hour I went back home and figured I'd just work on de-rusting the rear wheel.
It would be easiest to work on it mounted to the forks, but it would't fit with the tire on so I decided to have a go at removing it, way worse than the front. I was finally able to get one spoonful of bead pried over the wheel, no way to get another in. I held it and used a die grinder to cut through the tire bead, then it was only a 'normal' battle of stretching it over the wheel. The rear rim was super rusty, some of the chrome is gone, but it cleaned up reasonably well.
I didn't take photos of the wheel, but here's the rear brake lever. I had already done the ends when I thought to take the before photo. If I decide to make it better I'll dab some chrome paint on the bare spots to hide them better, but it's vastly improved. It took about 5 minutes, most of the work was done with a fine wire wheel on the bench grinder. I wish I'd tried wire wheels sooner, it does a great job and does't scratch up the chrome as long as it's fine wire. I used two different ones on the rear rim being driven by a cordless drill and die grinder. I had a small one that was able to fit between the spokes fairly well.
I took a quick stab at mounting the front tire, fuck that, they're both going to a shop with a machine.