Removing emitters from stars

I was wondering what the trick was to removeing the emitter from the star. I f*cked up a Q bin HD trying to remove it from the star. I desoldered the leads with copper braid and then gentely began prying the emitter from the star base and thought it was working, but then the housing fell off the emitter. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif I then, after it was destroyed, took 2 sets of pliers and bent the aluminum base and pulled off the rest of the emitter. Is this the way to do it correctly, i.e. desolder the leads then bend the base to break the heat sink adhesive? Any other ideas or tried and true methods are appreciated. Thanks.
From this point on I beleive I'll just order plain emitters for my projects. I was planning on putting this Q on a terralux for my Minimag but now think I'll not be able to remove the side emitter from the terralux without destroying either or both the emitter or the terralux base.

The proper way to do it is to desolder the leads and then bend the sink. I have removed lots of emitters from stars in this manner and it has always worked well.

Reading another post for something else I found the answer. True to my nature, I learned the hard/expensive way. Has anyone found something to clean the sink adhesive off the emitter? And has anyone gone so far with their mods to lap the sink and the emitter like you would for a cpu?

I use a double edge razor blade to "scrape" the gunk off the back of the emitter.

"Lap" the emitter's slug against a flat surface with 600 grit sandpaper (or preferably, finer) to remove the old adhesive. I lap 'em to 2000 grit or better. It only takes a few seconds.

Larry