how do you take a part a vex claw ?
As far as I know, the screws on the metal bracket should be taken out, then the braces removed and from there its pretty easy. Good luck
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If you remove the c-clips it comes apart.
BUT – why are you taking it apart? They are super hard to get back together again.
+1 to that. Not sure I have seen one put back together well once it has been taken apart.
Maybe to get the torsion spring out?
I have taken one apart, but only to get the motor, the spring is no longer the way it was originally. If you don’t need the motor, do not take it a part. The spring will probably bend and if it does, you will not bend it back the way it is should be.
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Pliers are an easy way to get the c-clips off
I’ve never attempted it on the vex claw, but I have to deal with c clips a lot on my RC cars. The most effective way that I’ve found is to take a flat head screwdriver, stick one of the corners of the tip into the back side of the c clip, and push. Pliers, however, are very effective for putting them back on.
We put them back together all the time 
Long screw and nyloc - done!
Seriously, I figured out that we want the kids to explore how to modify designs to meet their needs - so, rather than get too worked about putting the claw back together exactly how they found it, they had to figure out an easier method.
All good.
One of our team members during Skyrise decided to use a servo instead of a motor on the claw: he had to change out a gear and add a bracket fashioned from 1x bar to hold the servo and make it work right.
As long as we have three or four intact claws for training, we let them experiment (with a little mentor supervision, of course) however they would want.
For Skyrise one of my teams took it apart to remove the spring and then attached a pneumatic cylinder to operate the claw so they would have a quick, strong grab and release motion.
That sounds cool, did the cylinder fit inside the claw?
Umm, that’s not putting them back together, I’m guessing they tried with the C-clips and found it was too hard so they just kludged it.
The reason I asked was I had a roboteer rip one apart to use the metal as a mounting bracket that they could have made out of flat stock and the bender.
No, the cylinder was just to the side of the main body of the claw.
Here is a picture of it with their arm fully raised. They also used pneumatics to rotate the claw up/down to get it out of the way when placing cubes.
http://www.cornerstonerobotics.net/uploads/1/4/9/1/14910528/5190938_orig.jpg