I find the key to working on things is to keep this mantra in mind: "They had to put it together somehow."

In other words, if it was assembled, usually it can be disassembled, fixed, and re-assembled. It's not always clear how (I just took apart a fish aquarium filter that very cleverly snapped together in such a way that it was not obvious at first how to get it apart) but most things today are "designed for manufacturing" such that they are easily assembled and thus can usually be disassembled. You just have to look at the object and figure out the reverse order of assembly.

Now there are cases where this is not the case. If something has been welded or otherwise permanently bonded closed then you have a problem. But generally you don't run into this until you have the assembly down to replaceable sub-components that are unservicable.

Steve