R

rockit

Active Member
Those little white rib stickers are driving me crazy. They won't come off. I have had to use a scraper which ends up scratching the parts and then have to scrub the rather persistent glue off with lacquer thinner.
Anybody have a better way?

Van's needs to start using easy peel stickers. It would save us a lot of hassle.
 
Quick and easy method.....get a bucket of warm water with a small amount of dish soap. Let it soak for about 15 seconds, then peel right off.
 
rockit said:
Anybody have a better way?.......
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I actually discovered this stuff by way of my wife. In her home office, she uses it to remove uncancelled postage stamps from envelopes. I use it to remove old adhesive labels from my parts bin drawers and all manner of stickers that come with todays products....including Van's sticky stickers. Works like a charm.

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Try Goo Gone. Can find at hardware and department stores. I scraped the majority of the tags off with a plastic kitchen dish scraper, then used Goo Gone to rid the part of the glue. Works great!
 
Goof Off

I peel them off as best I can, then use Goof Off to dissolve the adhesive. Goof Off is little more than lighter fluid, as far as I can tell. Great stuff to have around. You can get it a Home Depot, in the paint department.
 
Since I have lots of Isopropyl alcohol lying around, I just use an old sock to soak up some and dab it on the label - the paper soaks it right through to the adhesive on the back side and it peels off easily. I used to use it for scroll saw woodworking to get the spray-glued on patterns off the wood after cutting.
 
Goo Gone

Safe (citrus based), cheap, and VERY effective. You can get it at most local hardware or grocery stores. Oh yea, and it is safe for getting the residue off of the powder coated parts without dissolving the powder coat.

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If you're going to prime, you have to clean them with some sort of solvent anyway. Just save yourself the time and do it then. For me it was lacquer thinner that both prepped the ribs for priming and removed the sticker residue all at once.
 
I use acetone--it's what I use to degrease the parts anyway. Put a little on a paper towel, hold it tight against the sticker for a few seconds, scrape it off with a popsicle stick & clean up the residue with the acetone on the paper towel. If I soak it longer than a few seconds, maybe 10 or 15 seconds it comes off easily and cleanly and I don't have to use the popsicle stick.

If I remember correctly, the active ingredient in Goo-gone is xylene, with a bunch of stuff to mask the smell. Xylene is about as toxic as acetone, so use it with gloves. De-solv-it doesn't say what the solvent is, it just says it's biodegradable.
 
I use lacquer thinner, on a small (2"x2") square of shop towel. Saturate the towel, hold it against the sticker for a few seconds. Then the sticker scrapes off easily with a fingernail. Then use the still-wet towel to remove the adhesive. No big deal, but I wish vans would find something better.
 
Goo-Gone Good (citrus). Goof-Off Bad (xylene)

RScott said:
If I remember correctly, the active ingredient in Goo-gone is xylene, with a bunch of stuff to mask the smell. Xylene is about as toxic as acetone, so use it with gloves.
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Sorry, but you've got your products mixed up. Goo-Gone is citrus oil based and is relatively benign, while Goof-Off (a similar sounding product) is 90-95% Xylene and as you point out should be used with the proper precautions.

While I agree with comments about using acetone or other solvents on the wing ribs, the reason I like Goo-Gone is that is that you can also use it to remove the stickers from the powder coated parts without harming the powder coat. I certainly wouldn't use any acetone, MEK or any solvent based product there.
 
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I hate those #$@$@! things!

I hate those #$@$@ stickers! I used either MEK or Goof-off. Goof-off usually worked the best. Put a few drops on it. let it soak. then slide it off. I don't know about the Xylene in Goof Off. I tried straight Xylene and it didn't work all that great.

I have some citrus based industrial adhesive remover that is used in the sign business. I havn't tried that but I'm sure it would work great.

I heard a warning about using citrus based products on aluminum. Something about the citric acid or something like that causing some corrosion problems.
 
Bob Collins said:
If you use an oil-based product, what's the chances your primer is gonna hold?
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Oil from your fingers or oil from the drill or other tools can all make there way onto your parts during the construction process. I would think that all of us go throught some sort of prep process, which typically includes cleaning the parts, prior to priming. Now your right, if you don't remove the stickers until the very end just prior to priming, an oil-based product probably isn't a good idea. But if your like me, and you remove them early on, it really doesn't matter, the parts are going to be dirty and need to be cleaned anyway. Besides, I''ll take the smell of oranges over MEK any day! :) :p

wingtime said:
I heard a warning about using citrus based products on aluminum. Something about the citric acid or something like that causing some corrosion problems.
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I am interested in hearing more about this as it is my understanding that citric acid based solutions are widely used in industrial applications as a more environmentally friendly way of cleaning various metals, including aluminum. Thanks.
 
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