[Milsurplus] Opening HC-6 cans ?

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 20 Sep 2019 at 16:21, Hubert Miller wrote:

> I found, or i should say rediscovered, a bunch of HC-6 rocks that i removed from a 1950s Collins 
> VHF air transmitter i scrapped some years back. This set apparently used a crystal mixing 
> scheme to generate the VHF  channels. There's abt 20 right in the 80m voice band but they all 
> end on odd numbers like 3833.3 kHz. I would like to harvest the blanks and mebbe grind them to 
> more popular defined channels like 3885. I recall in the past my attempts to open the soldered 
> ones using a 100 watt iron didn't work. Maybe cutting them open? Some are not soldered 
> anyway. What use: jeweler's blade coping saw? Dremel ? What think you ?
> -Hue

I've opened them easily with the larger soldering gun, the 300 watt size.

However, those crystals are the plated types, are delicate, and, usually, are NOT easily 
moved in either direction.

One can, sometimes, move them lower by using a pencil on the crystal face, and sometimes 
can move them a bit higher by very carefully grinding an edge, but they are not usually 
easily moveable.

Ken W7EKB