Best way to remove leadlight endcap?

[Crossfire]

I need to remove the endcap to my Atlasnova leadlight in order to clean the lens with my Lenspen.  What is the best way to remove the endcap without mangling it into an unidentifiable piece of metal?

 

[Daedal]

Use an exacto knife and slowly dig around the edges until the knife fits in somewhere. What I do is push on the four corners repeatedly. Don't push too hard if you don't want to scratch the paint. Once the knife is in, you can wiggle it back and forth (make sure you don't break the knife into your eye or something) until the knife is loose in the groove there. This will take a while... so be very patient. You will get to a point where the exacto knife will be too small, so simply grab a 'thicker' knife. I don't mean a bigger knife perhaps, but something like a survival knife would do because these things are nice and thick. Now all you have to do is pull the cap out with this big knife using the same procedure but with a little more force. Distribute the force across the 4 edges and you'll get a clean rip. Unlike the regular leadlights, the Atlasnova lasers' endcap is not attached to the laser module. Taking the endcap off will leave the module in place and allow you to clean it very easily!

Hope that helps. Don't hesitate to ask further questions;
DDL

 

[Kenom]

You can also use the wood trick. Take a piece of wood and drill a hole in it the size of the laser's tip. Cut that wood in half right directly down the center of the hole and place the two pieces over the endcap of the laser and tighten the whole thing into a vise. Once you've gotten it secure you can twist, pull and cavort it out. There hasn't been a single cap that I havn't been able to remove with this trick. I've got a long peice of wood with several sized holes in it specifically for this purpose.

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

Kenom --

When I first posted the wood block trick months ago -- Some folks laughed at the process. That is also how to remove the barrel from the receiver on a gun !!! Old trick for modern use
I use a piece of walnut because it's hard.
Mike

 

[Daedal]

It also doesn't scratch the surface and a stronger grip than you can ever get with several many other 'gripping' solutions

--DDL