How does this come off?

[over my head]

Before stopping for the season, I tried to see how well my 63 Tradewind would polish. I removed one of the clearance lights and tried several polishes. Then I tried acetone, paint stripper, paint thinner even gasoline. Next, I decided to try you guys .... How does this come off? BTW I am referring to the black gook around the light. All the lights have them, some streaking down several inches.

[DFlores]

Goof off pro strength

[thesignlady]

If it is old vulkem or silicone based (which is a no no on aluminum) I would recommend rapid remover. It is an industrial strength adhesive remover I use at my sign shop to remove the adhesive left behind after removing vinyl lettering. So far in my shell on restoration have used half a gallon to remove 40 plus years of goo easily.

I have discovered it does not remove gutter seal or cured sitkaflex (Works great on fresh uncured sitkaflex though) all the older goop on my trailer came off no problem

If you are unsure of what your old goop is call around to a few sign shops near you and see if they use rapid remover and if they do, ask to borrow a small jar of it to see if it works on your goo before you order some.

Spray it on, leave 60 seconds if an area starts to look dry spray some more, scape off the goo with a plastic scraper into a paper towel, repeat as needed, use a paper towel soaked in the stuff to buff any residue off. It also removes sap spots from the roof and de-stickifies gucky interior vinyl walls. Clear coat safe we use it on vehicles and aluminum work trailers all the time.

Good luck,
Leya

[ALANSD]

what she said. That black is where the aluminum oxide has gotten into the sealant. This is why you strip the clearcoat, then compound, then polish and then lastly reseal all the seams and lights,etc.

[over my head]

Thank you, everybody! I will try all of it. The goof off first, as the Mrs. has it under the kitchen sink. I can only guess what that stuff is? I have seen it in a lot in the "before photos" in this forum. So..I am confident it comes off. Again, Thanks, Ed

[over my head]

We had a warmer day in Chicago the other day so i tried Goof off on that black stuff. The black stuff LAUGHED at Goof off. Nothing happened. It looks like it is "in the metal"
as ALENSD said in his thread. Come spring, I'll try some of the strippers mentioned in this forum.

[Landshark]

Originally Posted by thesignlady

If it is old vulkem or silicone based (which is a no no on aluminum) I would recommend rapid remover.

Spray it on, leave 60 seconds if an area starts to look dry spray some more, scape off the goo with a plastic scraper into a paper towel, repeat as needed, use a paper towel soaked in the stuff to buff any residue off. It also removes sap spots from the roof and de-stickifies gucky interior vinyl walls. Clear coat safe we use it on vehicles and aluminum work trailers all the time.

Good luck,
Leya

Sign lady,

Interior: does this stuff remove the sticky residue left on the luan bulkheads when the "wallpaper" peels off a '70s unit? And if it removes the sticky, how do you get the remover residue off so you can finish the luan with varnish, or paint, or whatever? I don't want to end up with worse residue to get off than I started with.

Hope you can help!

Vivian

[thesignlady]

I honestly have never tried the Rapid Remover on a raw wood product so I am not sure how it would work. I would suspect it wouldn't work to well, some problems I could envision would be the spray would suck in the wood and not work so much on softening the glue. Or it may soften the glue but scraping it off after could be ugly as your scraper would only scrap from the high level areas and all the indenty areas like the texture of the wood or knots or other imperfections would be reservoirs for the goo to collect and wiping with paper towels after I could see the paper towel breaking apart and sticking to the wood. You could always try a small area and see what happens though...

[Landshark]

I'll have to try it on a small, out-of-sight section: you are right. Maybe using 0000 steel wool instead of paper towels, as you would for paint or varnish removal, would be a better plan? The luan is free of knots; I sure hope this will work.

Thanks muchly!

Vivian

[vinstream]

The brown is not anything on the surface rather it is in the Aluminum. The steel screws that holds down the light base to the Alclad skin has caused this color change. It is caused by dissimilar metals when one metal eats into the other. You need to replace these screws with stainless, but if it was my project I would personally rivet the three holes then use stainless screws. You need to remove the three screws and remove the base plate to remove the rust off the Aluminum. You will have to mechanically remove the rust down to where you see fresh shinny Aluminum. Looking at your picture shows deep pitting in your alclad aluminum anyways so to remove down to bare aluminum is not going to hurt you much. I would start with F9 and if that does not cut through the rust you may have to DA with scotch bright. I would seal up the light base plate and rivet it bak into place and it should turn out real nice.

[thesignlady]

Oh, good idea Vivian, I could totally see that working OK :-)
Good Luck and keep us posted on how it works