Remove Old Vinyl Letters

[GJD]

Need to rename the vessel. What's the best / safest way to remove old vinyl letters off the stern without wrecking the finish? How prevalent is ghosting once the old letters have been removed?

 

[krush]

I've had good luck with a heat gun or hair drier and a new single edge razor blade. Once you get them started u can usually grab enough and peel the rest of the vinyl back...your millage may vary though.

Acetone usually takes off any sticky stuff.

 

[Angela]

It's been stated here before that Easy-Off oven cleaner will remove lettering without damaging the paint. On mine, I was able to life a corner with my fingernail and then just peeled the whole thing off quite easily. Afterwards, I used "Goo-Off" to clean off the residue.

For the stickers the FL Dept. of Revenue sticks on your boat when you've claimed examption from sales tax....that was very difficult to remove since it peeled off in little slivers. I wish I had known about the oven cleaner for that. I'd try simply peeling it off first. I'd be afraid to use a heat gun since, unlike a hair dryer, that could scorch the finish in a split second if you're not extremely careful. Good luck.

 

[garyd]

Use a heat gun or a very good blow dryer. Once you have them off use isopropal alcohol or wd-40 to get the glue off. Once the glue is off rubbing compound is needed. Buff until your tired of buffing lol. If you have never used a buffing wheel with compound practice on an old car. You can burn right through the paint in short order if ya don't know what you are doing. However since the name is on the flat transom and you are careful and don't Tim Taylor it you should be o.k.. Your paint is probably 1 mil thick. Gelcoat is 15-20 mils thick. So if ya see someone in a yard leaning on a buffing wheel and think you can do the same thing and your boat is painted like most Hatteras boats you will get to the gel coat faster than you think. You just basically want to gently buff with compound the entire transom.

Then use isopropal alcohol again. Apply new name. Let set for about a week then wax transom.

Ghosting may be there may not. However if you follow the above procedure it will be minimal and very few if anyone will see it. It will also tend to lessen over time as the exposed paint and /or gelcoat catches up to the other exposed surfaces.

garyd

 

[Maynard Rupp]

Use a hairdryer. That will soften the vinyl and you can peel it off easily. Use 3M adhesive remover for the glue. Acetone will sofften the Imron and that is not good.

 

[MikeP]

I found many years ago that the best technique for removing decals on cars was hot water. The hardest part is directing the water onto the surface. I would boil water and dribble it onto the surface. Once the decal has a loose corner, pull it up as you continue to dribble the hot water on to the joint between the decal and the paint. A guy showed me this a long time ago and it will remove the decal a lot faster. Of course, depending on the size, you might have to get several containers of water to do the job.

It's disappointing to hear that acetone will bother Imron at all. The DuPont Imron I used to shoot on cars/bikes/trucks/airplanes was totally unaffected by acetone or any normal solvent - laq thinner, Mek, etc. Back then there was only one version of Imron, now there seem to be a dozen! I use acetone on our boat paint (Imron- 1992) frequently to clean varnish or whatever spills and it has no effect except to remove the spill.

From what I can understand from several painters that worked in our previous marina, neither current Imron (at least the version they used) or Awlgrip is remotely comparable in durability to the original Imron.

Ghosting will totally depend on how long the old decal was there. We renamed our previous boat and the ghosting never faded away but that was on gelcoat which is known to suck for color longevity. Either Imron or Awlgrip well resist fading much better so it might not be much of a problem.