All very good advice
I definitely favour the method of chopping off the legs of leaded components and then remove the legs individually. As Brendan says the component is best binned anyway so the priority is to preserve the PCB and cause as little damage as possible.
The 'Chipquick' is an interesting product, that's new to me ! In the past when removing SM devices I have used a heat gun and found this very effective.
Luckily, I have a secret weapon if all else fails ..... it's called a 'Rachel'. She's a contractor at work employed to perform board modifications and fix boards. The boards are ten+ layers with features I can barely see - if she can't fix it .... it goes in the bin
