Got a cheap 8mm camera and trying to pop of the lens - it looks decent and a strong achromat to boot - but for the life of me, I can't get it out of the steel housing! any ideaS?

In the process of popping it, I destroyed the ring on the outside, but there has to be a way to pop it without all the cutting and general wrecking of the retaining ring - coke maybe? DW40?

How is it affixed into the ring itself? Can you tell if its some sort of glue, epoxy? If so then maybe you can find some sort of solvent. Or is it simply machined inside? Maybe a pic would help.

It's something terrible. You have to be really careful not to scratch the glass. First check if there is a ring with two gaps and try to unscrew it by pushing with a screwdriver in one gab(unless you have that special tool). If there isn't, try to find out how it was put together.

Yeah, Oscar - that is just what I did. Worked pretty good as well. Now I have a condenser, I think, but it is concave - weird!

Concave? Sure? Does it reduce the vignetting if you just hold the lens against the GG and look at it?