Baked on decal removal

[Hammmerhead]

I had a time with 14 year old reg. stickers too on a painted tin hull. These were the old style reflective mailbox stickers.

I finally had to use a razor blade and a heat gun. I had to get it really, really hot. It was doing the same thing, just breaking very small pieces and its what these stickers are designed to do. After losing patience, I would get a 1 inch area very hot and slip the blade under it as far as I could and press the corner of the number on the blade to stick to it and just let it hang until I got the area above it very hot. Having the corner of the sticker helped being stuck to the blade for puling. It took a little time, but didn't do anything to the paint. Just use a new blade, take your time and get it really hot. I hit the old glue with lacquer thinner to break it down and then it just wiped off with WD40.

[Marky]

Thanks guys. WD40 didnt phase these stickers! Hammerhead, I believe these are the old mail box stickers as I remember buying them at an old hardware store downtown a few years ago. Had my daughter order me the 3m eraser wheel and also the 3m adhesive remover so reckon see if that will work and if not take it to a body shop and let them figure it out. Looks like crap now after I botched one side up. Great site and alot of nice folks. Good luck fishing!
Marky

[Hammmerhead]

Thanks guys. WD40 didnt phase these stickers! Hammerhead, I believe these are the old mail box stickers as I remember buying them at an old hardware store downtown a few years ago. Had my daughter order me the 3m eraser wheel and also the 3m adhesive remover so reckon see if that will work and if not take it to a body shop and let them figure it out. Looks like crap now after I botched one side up. Great site and alot of nice folks. Good luck fishing!
Marky

Get them hot and they will come off. They're multi layer decals and clear layer on the top will start shrinking when you know they're ready to pull on. Once you find out what it takes you can run through them pretty quick. Don't worry, they will bubble like a blister when you know that spot is a little too hot.

[Marky]

Appreciate it guys! Ill give it another shot when I get to the Northwoods on Wed.
Marky

[try'n hard]

The only reason to heat the decal is to allow the vinyl to stretch rather than break and it will soften the glue in newer decals. Overheating will break the vinyl memory and increase the brittleness. Your also gonna screw up the paint overheating it. Those decals were probably reflective which is a lot harder to remove. NAPA auto parts sells one of the wheels that will work and cause no harm to the paint if you follow the rpm requirements listed for it.
I've been making and removing vinyl letter for 25 yrs. never met one I couldn't remove and only used a wheel twice

[Crestliner08]

Try "Goo-Gone".

[Northforker]

I used fingernail polish remover(acetone), worked pretty good, still took 2 hours.

[skintback]

Just went through this in February when I bought a used (fiberglass) boat.
I used a heat gun to get the stickers off and it worked great. The adhesive left behind was tough. I sprayed WD-40 on it, let it soak a few minutes, and GENTLY scrubbed it off with steel wool so not to mess up the gel coat. It was steel wool/brillo pads with soap in it (not sure if soap made a difference). It worked fantastic.

[chulai1968]

Turtle Wax label & sticker remover from Auto zone did the trick for me.