Salvage kit

The Guild Wars Wiki has an article on Salvage Kit.

Salvage kits are items used to break down various items into crafting materials and occasionally upgrade components. The salvaging process always destroys the item and consumes one charge of the kit. The more expensive kits are better at salvaging upgrade components and generate more of the higher-tier crafting materials than their cheaper counterparts. Note that there is often some confusion about the behavior of Salvage Kits. The in-game description of many of these kits state that they have an x% chance to salvage the upgrade. This means that upgrades are never recovered, though there is an x% chance to instead salvage it for something. Thus, Salvage Kits do not, like the Black Lion Salvage Kit would, recover upgrades unharmed.

Crude kits have 15 uses and are given as leveling rewards and sold by a variety of NPCs. Other standard kits come with 25 charges and can be acquired from most generalist merchants; some are also available from Karma merchants. The Copper-Fed, Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic, and Runecrafter's Salvage-o-Matic models are specialty kits available at the Gem Store; these kits have unlimited uses and deduct their per-use cost directly from your Wallet, at a slightly adjusted rate than the equivalent standard non-gem store model. The gem store also sells the Black Lion Salvage Kit, the only one with a 100% chance of recovering sigils, runes, and other upgrade components. Finally, you can create the 250-use Mystic Salvage Kit in the Mystic Forge by combining the three most expensive standard kits with three Mystic Forge Stones.

List of salvage kits

Type	Chance of rarer materials	Chance of salvaging upgrades	Cost	Uses	Cost/Use	Usable on	Sources
Crude Salvage Kit	0%	small (~5%)	32  or 28	15	2.13  or 1.87	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Most general merchants and some karma vendors
Basic Salvage Kit	10%	20%	88  or 77	25	3.52  or 3.08	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Most general merchants and some karma vendors
Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic	10%	20%	800	unlimited	3	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Gem Store
Fine Salvage Kit	15%	40%	2  88  or 252	25	11.52  or 10.08	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Most crafting merchants/trainers and a few karma vendors
Journeyman's Salvage Kit	20%	60%	8  or 2,800	25	32  or 112	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Primarily at crafting merchants/trainers
Master's Salvage Kit	25%	80%	15  36  or 5,600	25	61.44  or 224	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Primarily at crafting merchants/trainers
Mystic Salvage Kit	25%	80%	26  24  and 3 or 8,652  and 3	250	10.496  or 34.608	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Crafted in the Mystic Forge
Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic	25%	80%	500	unlimited	60	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Gem Store for limited periods.
Runecrafter's Salvage-o-Matic	20%	100%	600	unlimited	30	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Gem Store
Black Lion Salvage Kit	50%	100% chance of recovering upgrades	300	25	12	Salvage items and equipment up to FExotic rarity	Gem Store
Ascended Salvage Tool	?%	100% chance of recovering upgrades	2 +1  or 1+1	1	2 +1  or 1+1	GAscended equipment	Purchased from BUY-4373 or Laurel Merchants
Ascended Salvage Kit	?%	100% chance of recovering upgrades	10 +5	5	2 +1	GAscended equipment	Purchased from BUY-4373
Ascended Salvage Kit	?%	100% chance of recovering upgrades	40 +20	20	2 +1	GAscended equipment	Purchased from BUY-4373
Portable Composter	?%	n/a	4 and	unlimited	Free	Food and feasts	Crafted as part of Gourmet Training
Research Kit	?%	n/a	2	250	0.8	Crafted items	Specific vendors

Discontinued kits

The kits listed below can no longer be acquired.

Type	Chance of rarer materials	Chance of recovering upgrades	Cost	Uses	Cost/Use	Acquisition notes
Disasembler 3BEK Kit	10%	20%	25	250	0.1	Lionguard Lyns no longer accepts Captain's Council Commendations.
PvP Salvage Kit	-	-	96	15	6.4	Removed in the April 2014 Feature Pack. Usable only on PvP items.