Soda Blasting Old Decals

[DiamondWash]

I was going to buy a couple of vacs online but in the pics, the decals look to be super old, and instead of removing the original they just went over them with new decals which are now faded, cracked, and peeling, has anybody tried soda blasting decals off vacuums before I'm afraid it would destroy the finish but I could be wrong.

 

[MEP001]

It won't harm stainless, but I have doubts it'll be aggressive enough to cut through a decal. Harbor Freight has a gravity feed gun for $20 so it wouldn't be much of a cost to try. I use a heat gun and a scraper which is really fast, especially if you can heat the decal and just peel it off. I use a 3M decal remover wheel in a drill to remove the adhesive, mostly because it's a lot less messy than solvent. The bits are usually not sticky anymore and just sweep up.

 

[washnshine]

Can you vinyl wrap over the decals?

 

[MEP001]

I've seen it done, if the old ones are smooth it looks okay, but if they're cracked it looks like ass.

 

[mac]

I ‘be used soda blasting with good results. But you ain’t going to do it with a $20 thing. It works well if you get a real sandblaster and use soda instead of sand. Most
T don’t have access to one. Have also used gooey paint stripper, applied 3 times and removed with pressure washer or plastic scraper. Acetone removes residual glue. Sheila Shine to make it look nice.

 

[Waxman]

use a heat gun and a razor blade scraper. The one that the inspection stations use to scrape off the old stickers work well. It's a screwdriver handle with a razor blade mounted at the bottom. Once you get all the stickers scraped off, smear some Gojo jelly type original hand cleaner on the glue and leave it overnight. Go back the next day with a regular razor blade and the glue scrapes right off.Keep some paper towels handy to clean the razor blade after every scrape. Finish it with a little bit of solvent like alcohol and you're done. I think this is the easiest way.

 

[MEP001]

use a heat gun and a razor blade scraper. The one that the inspection stations use to scrape off the old stickers work well. It's a screwdriver handle with a razor blade mounted at the bottom. Once you get all the stickers scraped off, smear some Gojo jelly type original hand cleaner on the glue and leave it overnight. Go back the next day with a regular razor blade and the glue scrapes right off.Keep some paper towels handy to clean the razor blade after every scrape. Finish it with a little bit of solvent like alcohol and you're done. I think this is the easiest way.

It's important to use a new blade when you're scraping stainless steel. Any nicks in the blade will leave scratches. It's not really a problem as long as you're only scraping where a decal will end up. The Harbor Freight long-handle scraper works as good as any other after some adjusting - the Lisle with the spring clip blade holder is expensive junk.

 

[Randy]

We've been ordering our vacuums without decals. We have the minimal decals on the vacuums. Most of our vacuums have 2 decals, Price and a video/security decal.