Eye protection is needed and discharge battery completely is a must.
I used a vise and some channel lock pliers and just pulled the top off. Battery was pointing downward in vise and I used pliers and pulled from the bottom leaving the top pinched in the vise
I had one of my batteries leaking a strange fluid from a little hole that I accidentally made in the "-" of the cell, that smelled like PVC pipe glue, it still working, but I wonder if someone else had this experience before. The brand is JWS and the cell don't have anything written in it.
I disassembled a old laptop battery and found 6 cells in it, 4 was good, and 2 was dead. I think is safer to use this older cells than use those crap cells.