I was just cleaning out one of my old checmistry boxes. It's an Army surplus case, not a little box. Since "someone" turned it on it's side, all sorts of this had eaten through the lids and mixed in the side of the case. I was picking out glass, metal, some containers that were still sealed, when I realized that handfulls of potasium chromate or calcium hydroxide, were not a good idea. I might have leather for skin, but not against all those mixed up strong base chemicals. So any self respecting chemist would have thought of this ahead of time...

My goal was to find something cheap, in what people are calling Lucite. I don't even know if it's really Lucite (R) or some poured plastic decopage, hobby plastic.

Then using a saw, or grinder, remove the majority of the excess. With a Foredom (or Dremel type tool) remove the left over plastic intil very close to the chip. Then use dental tools, like a pick and see if I could pull the clear off the chip.

Just an idea, and it would take destroying at least one, to work on the tecnique.

As far as real chemists, I don't think solvents would work, because the type of material a chip is make of is bound to be more likely to be affected by more different solvents than the encasing plastic. So that's out.

Heating and cooling? Maybe freezing and have a fissure cut in the clear so it would split. Just tossing out ideas.

Anyone work in a tool and die shop where they would have a precision grinder, or milling machine that could take the clear plastic off a chip, down to a few thousandths?

If the clear does bond to the chip, I'd agree it's up there with the impossible, because the coating has now become one with the chip. Call it a Zen chip.