Epoxy Removal

[newmagrathea]

Are there any tricks or products for removing/releasing epoxy? I'm wanting to replace the t-tracks on my ANH Luke saber with new ones that have a better profile. I thought about using canned air turned upside down to spray coolant on the metal and hope the shrinkage would pop off the epoxied on t-tracks. I've used steel wool and an exacto blade to remove remnants of epoxy before but never separated two items glued together.

 

[propmainiac]

What if you heat it with a hair dryer then peel off the grips.

 

[Darth Lars]

Yep, heat could make epoxy lose / loosen its grip.

 

[newmagrathea]

Ok, I'll try out the hair dryer idea and see it it works. I'll post my results, I'm sure someone else might find the info handy.

 

[newmagrathea]

So my theory about cold temperature making epoxy brittle is true. I didn't have a can of air and didn't feel like buying one so I just threw my 3 cell bottom in the freezer for a couple hours. I had already broken two of the grips off with just finger pressure before I put in the freezer and could not break anymore free. But when I opened the freezer two of the grips had fallen off and another 2 came off really easy. The last one I did have to use a little bit of leverage but overall I didn't have to do much.

 

[Halliwax]

This is great to know, I never knew epoxy can be removed

 

[newmagrathea]

Thinking about this, the shrink rate of the materials and epoxy are probably very different. The cold probably weakened the epoxy and pressure from two different shrink rates probably broke the epoxy. Anyway, that's my theory. Probably wouldn't work as well on similar materials, like resin and plastic epoxied together.