whats the best way to remove reflective vinyl?

[Alan Drury]

Its a right pain removing reflective vinyl and if I know that in the future I will have to remove some I’m putting on I’ll even put conventional vinyl on first. If there is a method of removing I would love to know too.
Alan

[Andy Gorman]

There is a thread on here somewhere about some kind of attachment for an electric drill which is designed to remove vinyl. Whether anyone has used it on xr1000, I dunno. I know that I used that stuff that smells like oranges on engineering grade and it worked very well. Didn’t even touch the Avery stuff though, for some reason. (I think it was on the very vehicle you are talking about. They scraped it off with wallpaper scrapers and heat guns and knackered the paintwork last time.)

[John Childs]

“I have a customer who is trying to remove an Avery XR1000 reflective livery from a security vehicle”.

It could be worse Migs – at least you’re not doing it yourself. 😀

[Nigel Fraser]

Very true John 😆

You can use the “rubber wheel” attachment on the reflective vinyl, but I would say it is only a good idea if the letters/area covered is fairly small, say less than 150mm high or so. Otherwise it would take you numerous wheels to do much of the van !
I think the solvent is only suitable when you have stripped of the top layer and exposed the sticky back section as the reflective is normally a laminated composite sheet vinyl with a fairly tough clear top layer.

I would not rate the chemical stuff that Grafityp do for vinyl removal by the way – I had a customer who has tried it on normal vinyl and said it didn’t touch it.

Good luck !

Nigel

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Hi Migs!
(wasn’t there a Migs in To Sir With Love?)
Unfortunately the solvent your client needs the most is
good old-fashioned ELBOW GREASE
(hard work)
I had to remove reflective once. Man it was a bear.
We have Goo Gone, an orange-based gunk remover.
You can get it at DIY stores here.
There is also a Canadian product by Dominion Sure Seal
called “Professional Strength Label & Sticker Remover”
available at auto supply stores here.
And a L’il Chisler helps too.
Better him that you.
Love-JILL 😉

[Migs]

Thanks for your replies, i gave up on that one, his cheapest option is DIY!!couldn’t even get a response from avery tech 😥
For your info BigG it was you that applied it!! We re-did his VW Sharan with with a vinyl undercoat…just thinking ahead 😉
He got some new guy in town who specialises in ‘de-stickering’ vehicles. All he did was rip off the top layer and then legged it!!

By the way Jillbeans… I was thinking more ‘Silence of the Lambs’ myself 😉

[Andy Gorman]

Oh, if I fitted it just give it a coupla weeks and it’ll fall off on it’s own!

[slobo]

Hi Guys

I dont have experiance with removing reflectiv vinyl
but for normal vinyl glue removing I use regular car PETROL and smal Lil Cheasly
for me that is cheapest things for glue removing.

[John Childs]

Hi Migs.

I’ve just realised that we are in the same county. I’m just glad he didn’t come round here. 😀

Seriously, I usually find that when I tell customers how much removal will cost they suddenly decide go for the DIY option. Which is fine by me.

[Dale Horn]

** first post **

Reflective is bad for fragmenting

If you can get you hands on a “vinyl zapper”(~$400 US) – it seems to work the best for us. The vinyl wheels (~$50 US ea) have fingers and wear slower than the rubber disks.

Watch out for new paint jobs from the autobody shops they don’t stand up as well as the factory finishes. You can bun through the paint.

We also use a commercial wall paper steamer and an automotive curing light tree to soften up the adhesive for removal with teflon razors (our version of the L’il chizler) It allows a little more aggressive scraping.

Good Luck !

[David White]

Hexis sell a 3m glue remover but as everyone says you have to get top layers off first

[Peter Munday]

I had a Mitsubishi Warrior with reflective yellow all over it (I thought it looked good) When time came to sell I could not remove the reflective, and after much swearing I found out about a rubber wheel made by 3M. It still took a day to remove and I couldn’t lift anything for two days because my arms refused to work