Orangeous Dailies

I hope this post will help those with old car stickers to remove.

I decided to remove the Honda Civic sticker on my boot.

See that sticker under the Honda logo?

I had already removed all the other stickers a year ago. Just one last sticker left!

This sticker is a pain in the ass :

1. It has been on the car for 18 years.

2. It tears off in small pieces.

3. The gum stains were extremely hard to remove. I tried scraping them off but they just wouldn’t come off completely.

I read all sorts of articles advising on the use of hair dryers to heat up the stickers (risk damaging the car paint), WD40, nail polish remover, acetone and stuff like that. The hardware store was closed by the time I got home. I decided to use :

1. A plastic ruler.

2. A piece of foam eraser (the ones used to erase pencil markings).

Pilot eraser and plastic ruler.

Step 1 : Using the edge of the plastic ruler, scrape the edge of sticker lightly but rapidly. Try to get as much sticker build-up as possible.

Step 2 : Whenever you are able to get a grip on the edge of the sticker, pull it off gently. Try to get as much of the sticker off at one go.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 until all of the sticker is gone, leaving behind the gum stains. Forget about scraping the stickers off, it’ll be much faster peeling them off.

Step 3 : Using the eraser, rub as hard as you can on the ugly gum stains. I was surprised at how easily they came off.

The Honda Civic sticker is gone. No more gum stains as well.

[ Update : 160209 ]

Keizo suggested using Zippo fluid, a method frequently used by photographers and design students.