Tritium vial removal..??

I could not find much info on a search so I will ask this here as I also could not best figure out where to put this question.

I am ordering a new style body for my old style RAW internals. I did not think to include a spare tritium vial as I already have one on my old body. I am wondering if anyone has been able to safely remove one of these vials and transplant it to another body.

I know the vial is glass however it seems to be too fragile to force loose. I have used the supplied epoxy when installing it and I am not sure if it is even possible to remove it from the old body. Would there be any type of chemical I could safely use or maybe even heating body to soften the epoxy? I really do not know how strong the epoxy is that was supplied by ORB when I ordered these vials. All I can remember is that it was a 2 part epoxy that I had to mix together....any ideas would be appreciated.

I removed some GID+wpoxy mix from the bezel and body of my Pila GL3 by boiling the parts for a while and then prodding the epoxy with a toothpick. The mix came right off. The epoxy I used was clear 2-ton (I forget the fancy brand-name, it wasn't "generic").

From my day of cleaning epoxy off Arc pills... make sure to work with hot epoxy only. The stuff cools fairly quickly and that's when things go "crack".

Hope that helps.

I assume that since the rear tail section has no other electonic parts it will be easy to heat it by boiling it. I also hope that the sealed glass vial should not be harmed by boiling however I do not know how the tritium will react to boiling. I hate to waste this vial on the older style body as I really do like the new style.

I think I will try boiling it slowly and gently prodding with a toothpick to see if I get any movement. Any idea if the heat will effect the brightness or the lifespan of the tritium itself?

Hello

If your tritiums are swiss-made, the glas is saphire-glas.

This is more reliable than normal glas. But don't work with any metal on it.

The boiling heat will not be a problem for the radioactive process.

But don't use a open flame on it.

You can try to use "Aceton" thats the word in German.( I hope it's the same word in english) Aceton will destroy the most of 2 component glues.

The statement above was telling me from a co-worker of the manufacturer.

Best regards

____
Tom

Ok problem solved....

I have decided to simply purchase another vial as I really do not think any Orb light is complete without the tritium. It does add a classy touch and the original RAW body is nice with the green tritium so I would hate to mess it up.

One day the original body will be highly prized I believe as it was the one that started it all so I have decided to leave my original as is. I have a total of 3 Orb lights now and they all never cease to amaze me...Rob does make some nice lights.