Salvaging METAL fittings from your home or DIY PEX plumbing project might be more common and certainly easier but for those who need to save a couple plastic ones, this is how I do it.
I use the Stainless Steel Clamp Ring and they can be difficult to remove from plastic fittings, because many tools crack or break the plastic fitting. This time I’m using my Knipex pliers (pictured here), which are amazing and very expensive but you certainly don’t need anything this fancy.
“Today I’m going to take the pex tubing and stainless steel clamp off of this plastic Tee fitting so I can reuse it. It’s a little tricky since I don’t have a cutter on my crimping tool or any proprietary pex clamp removal tools.
What I don’t want to do is take a screwdriver and pry open the clamp, because it doesn’t work.
What does work is using these 3 tools: a brand new razor blade, a pair of pliers and some old side cutters.
First I twist the pipe so the little tab at the end of the ring is accessible, and then use the pliers to bend it straight, like this.
Second, using the old side cutters I’m going to squeeze between the two pieces of metal until they begin separating. Now I should have enough room to grab the outer bit of metal and just start twisting it until I hear it kind of pop as it loosens. Then I can just slide it off.
The pex tubing is still stuck on there since it was compressed by the clamp; I’ll have to cut it off. So, using a brand new razor blade, I’m going to score it, but not too deep because I’m going to check it afterwards to be sure I didn’t cut into the actual fitting.
With the assembly on the table and holding it firmly I’ll score it right in a straight line on the top
Then using my pliers I’ll start ripping the pex at the score. Right where it’s white is where the pex is tearing and if see my initial score wasn’t quite deep enough I’ll lightly score it again in the same place.
Finally I’ll continue to tear the pex with the pliers until it peels away. Now I’m going to check to make sure that the razor blade never touched the fitting. There are no score marks on the fitting so I know I can reuse it.”