There are many stories of injuries caused by attempting to remove crimp caps from vials with knives, scissors, nail files and screwdrivers etc. This can result in personal injury as well as a broken or chipped vial resulting in a contaminated product.
Obviously this is not the way to do it safely or satisfactorily. There are tools available for this task, some better than others. In my opinion the four jawed de-capper is the cleanest and safest way to remove a crimped on cap from a vial or bottle. If the cap can be removed cleanly without damaging the vial then this has got to be the best result.
At Laboratory Precision Limited we have been manufacturing a number of sizes of de-cappers with four jaws for many years as we believe this is the best way to remove crimped on caps. With a four jawed de-capper equal pressure is applied to all sides of the vial cap simultaneously, thereby balancing the pressure, reducing the likelihood of breaking or chipping the top of the vial.
Four jaw de-cappers when manufactured precisely for a given vial assembly will remove the cap safely and easily time after time. The de-capper can be manual or pneumatic and a selection along with video’s can be viewed by clicking this link;
http://lab-uk.com/apcp2000-air-powered-vial-crimper-decapper-tool-p
Ken Marshall – Director of Engineering