Since we're talking about desoldering caps on the SE/30 logic board, not logic chips, I would like to add some thoughts.
I dont think the part matter much, its the board
The above statement is correct much of the time, but not all the time. Specifically, when desoldering the two thru-hole axial caps from the SE/30 motherboard, it took a 450°C soldering station and several seconds of heat application before the lead soldered to the Ground Plane would even come loose. (Those of you who have desoldered those axial caps before should know what I am talking about here.) Since this is a multi-layered circuit board we're talking about here, a soldering wick wasn't much help to me (yes, I tried it more than once in the past on those thru-hole points).
I managed to do it tonight set at about 300, mixing hobby solder into a thoroughly heated, but not soaked joint, and added the pre-tinned end of solder wick and it sucked dry pretty quickly, its very important to hit the pad, the lead, the solder wick, AND as much area of the hole with as much iron mass as possible (chisel tips are nice, I dont have one, so its like holding a drumstick)
So in cases where one of the leads is soldered to a Ground Plane (or a lot of copper traces on the PCB), you just might need to soak the lead in heat for several seconds with a very hot iron to make it come lose. Since you are desoldering a cap you've most likely clipped of anyway, it really won't do much harm to apply a lot of heat for a longer than normal period of time. Yes, there are limits, but so long as you keep the heat application to around 10 seconds or less, your board will be fine.
An alternative technique is to melt a lump of fresh solder on a fussy lead that is attached to a Ground Plane. Heat up that solder blob for several seconds and usually the lead can then be pulled out with ease by using a pair of needle-nose pliers. The point is that when dealing with Ground Planes you need a lot of heat and you will need to keep the soldering iron on the desolder-point for a longer time than would be required to loosen the solder on other connections.
this is all soaking and it can be lessened by good joint contact, plenty of flux and some hobby solder to loosen things up
But with regard to SMD caps, I was not thinking about using the clipping suggestion on these. Osgeld is correct that trying to cut off those caps would result in a big mess. I strongly recommend against that. I personally only clip thru-hole components. The easiest and least messy way to remove the SMD caps is either with two irons or with a desoldering station that has a special head for removing SMD caps. I have been successful at both methods.
agreed
