Vintage Veloce
pro rider
Here are my tips.
- Just peel the sticker off? Sometimes this actually works fine, but it almost always goes better with heat.
- Heat. Make sure the sticker is warm. Leaving the bike with the sticker in the hot sun. Or use a hair dryer or heat gun. If using a dryer or heat gun, be careful not to overheat the piece, you can melt plastic or ruin the paint if it gets to hot! You just want it very warm (not burning hot!) to the touch. The warmth also seems to help more of the glue to come off with the sticker.
- Peel the sticker off slowly and carefully. It is best if you can get the sticker off in one piece, because if it tears you can end up dealing with lots of little annoying pieces. Use your fingernail or a sharp PLASTIC scraper to pull up the edge. Re-heat the sticker as necessary. If it starts to tear, move to another corner if you can.
- Fork reflectors. I heat these with a hair dryer or heat gun, and then I use a thin plastic scraper to get underneath them and cut through the adhesive. Sometimes I use dental floss to try and cut behind the reflector. Once the adhesive has been cut or pushed out of the way you can pull up the reflector.
- Residue:
- first just try rubbing the residue with your thumb. Start at the edge and press hard. Some stickers use something like a rubber adhesive. The "WP Apex" fork sticker shown above left a thick layer of on the fork, but with hard rubbing it all came right up.
- solvent. The best and safest solvent I have found is WD-40. I spray some on a rag and wipe the residue and let it soak for a few seconds, and then rub. And I repeat this as necessary. Sometimes I lay a WD-40 soaked bit of paper towel of the area to soak the residue for a bit.
- stronger solvents... be very careful! Some solvents will remove the paint, damage the finish or even dissolve plastic. I don't think I needed anything stronger than WD-40 for the stickers shown in the picture. That said, sometimes sticker residue does need stronger solvent. But proceed with great caution! If I need to, depending on the material, I escalate through the following options: 70% isopropyl alcohol, mineral spirits, acetone and on rare occasion xylene. Beware these are much more likely to damage the finish... test them on a hidden area first. Make sure they do not soften or discolor the finish or material!
- I usually clean off the WD-40 afterwards. Sometimes a wipe with a microfiber towel will clean it up, but often it needs to be washed off.
- Note: some stickers, particularly porous paper stickers, respond well to being soaked in WD-40 instead of heat. But I have not seen plastic stickers respond to this because the plastic prevents the WD-40 from getting to the adhesive underneath.
