I've been bitten by the Caravel bug and now have one really beaten down Caravel and another en route from Italy. The former is in pretty bad shape and in need of a paint job but I first need to disassemble it and it is there that I'm having difficulty. How does one remove the white power switch from the back and how is the front round light removed? I've looked on the big thread and even posted this question in another form but haven't found any answers. What I don't want to do is break it as it would be nice to have both machines up and running at some point.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I'm also interested in some tear down tips - I have a VAM that needs powdercoating and I'm unclear as to how to remove the back knobs.

On my Caravel, there were flat head screws in the bottom plate. Remove those and take off the plate (could be stuck) and you have access to just about all the electronics on the machine. The heating element you should be able to remove from the top once you take the kettle off.

Knobs should be able to be removed once the bottom is off. On mine I rewired for an internal SSR and external PID, so I didn't do a full strip down, but it's fairly simple inside, not a whole lot to figure out once your under the hood so to speak.

Is there a release for the switch within? I imagine that you cannot take the thermostat out without first removing the power switch.

If you show us photos of what you're trying to remove it will help people to guide you.

Yes, you have to remove the bottom plate (screws on the feet) to have a better look on how it is fixed... and take pictures.
No small screw anywhere on the white knob ?

No small screw that I can see. I will tear it back down and post pictures to illustrate my questions. Thanks for the responses.

On the V1 that I have, the bottom knob is held to the aluminum body with a nut that screws on from the inside; I feel like once you remove the bottom plate a lot of the disassembly would be quite straight forward.