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Submitted by: BAMiron

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such as they are, here are some of the tips we have used to get by the epoxy we think you are talkin' about........we do know that the "yellow" epoxy the chinese makers use is organic, which means it is essentially "horse-hoof" glue which is very suseptible to the "freeze it & heat it" method of destabilizing the molecular bond in the glue which will allow you to crack it up more easily using a hammer, block, target approach.....that's where you hit a block with your hammer placed in front of your area of impact.........basicly, heat in the oven at 225 degrees til hot....put it in the freezer until ice cold and repeat with numerous beatings in between...........this is also very good for bad step-children. also, it is VERY important to COMPLETELY remove the mekugi because any little piece held in by glue after you remove the bulk of the pin will prevent the tsuka from coming free.......this means do not try to save the pin even if it is not cracking up and then you must clean out the pin hole(s) with a scraper or shaver because you will need to rock the pinhole with a punch or nail set much like using a drift pin for lining up steel holes for nuts and bolts........we do this to help break up the glue as well.......if you are not clear on this .......check with a steel worker and see what a drift pin is for.........we use a circular motion with the driftpin tool(punch or nail set) to accomplish this............once this is all done, then we take to the hammer and blocks and smack down on the tsuba or whatever else we can whack , with the hammer & block...........generally we start with a nylon headed hammer before going to ball peen...........we hope this helps.......if your oven is too small to fit the blade, try a hot plate or pro blow dryer........clearly, the freezer must be long enough ........we have also seen boiling water and air conditioners give out enough heat and cold ........the important thing here is the temperature differential as opposed to the temperatures themselves (high or low)

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