Another shell de-meating technique which I don't think I covered in my
fabulously erudite article on shell cleaning in Of Sea and Shore a few
years back : leave the shell in warm water for a few minutes to soften the
meat up, then wrap it in a cloth and tape it, siphon outwards, to the
inside of a spin drier. Give it a few minutes on spin and out it all comes.
Of course, this will stink up the drier, but hey - science demands
sacrifices. Shell de-meating centrifuges can also be made from exercise
bicycles, or for a simpler solution just cut the top off a plastic drink
bottle, wedge a cloth in the bottom, put the shell in there, attach three
strings to equally-spaced holes in the upper rim of the bottle and tie them
together; tie a longer string to that knot and whirl the whole thing round
as fast as you can.
 
The mad professor