Hi Supersonicchronic, Today is the first time I tried this so I found it pretty interesting how they are actually made. Once you cut the metal part off the bottom there is an indentation. I then took a tiny screw driver and pushed straight down until I broke a hole into the indentation. I then carefully broke small pieces away until it was wide open. Using gloves probably would be a good idea (I didn't think of it at the time though, duh). A couple of other notes, the bulb I used had a white coating inside (just some type of powder) so I took some unused kitty litter and put a bit into the light bulb, shook it around and the white powder comes right off the bulb. Another thing I did was put some water in there to rinse it out good. To try to get the moisture out of the bulb I took my butane lighter to it to get the excess water to evaporate. Well I learned that butane lighters are too hot for light bulbs and it shattered the bulb. I think a bic lighter or a candle would be best for a flame source. I also read that 100 watt bulbs have a thicker glass so they are a bit more durable. Unfortunately all I had was a 75 watt so I had to go with that. Good luck and happy vaporizing, SUGAREEfer.