"Soft Touch" remover

I tend to just use fingernails ... and now avoid buying anything with soft touch finish.

Yeah but fails my point "a) that is tedious". I have two bits of case top and bottom about 6" x 4" to clean. Also the bottom is really sticky, think the sticky denatured oil/fat fall out you find in kitchens.

My experience is that once these (usually black) rubbery finishes go sticky there is nothing that can be done about it. All my attempts, on a range of items donated to a charity shop which I have been testing, have failed and usually made it worse. I have always blamed owners cleaning them with anything other than soap and water but I am probably wrong and it may well be an age thing. However if anyone knows better I also would be delighted to hear from them .

What about a solvent - petrol, white spirit, methylated spirit, gin :) ?

I've worked my way through various possibly solvents/lifters from alchol based things to WD40. White board cleaner made a small impression, paraffin (heating oil) wasn't as good. I tested the Aldi "thinners" (Xylene) on the plastic and, as I thought, it softens the plastic...

Veg oil nope, vinegar nope. I think lighter fuel might shift the gunk but I haven't seen lighter fuel on sale recently. Might have a try with petrol tommorow.

Ammonia is the stuff for kitchen grease. No idea if it would work for you. Bleach and a multi-day soak in warm washing powder are other general purpose removers.

NT

If meths dosn't wory, don;t waste your money on gin (other than to drown your sorrows when nothing works) - it is chemically dilted meths. Malcolm

In message , Dave Liquorice writes

I've found that orange scented label remover, sold by the likes of RS and Maplin, is good for removing more sticky things than just labels.

Very best of luck though :-)

But the fingernail worked, it just wasn't big enough. Try a credit card.

Some soft touch lasts for ever, assuming no abuse or solvent, others seem tostart to break down. The last stuff i removed from a part of my old shaver using just a piece of broken plastic from an audio cassette case. Highly scientific.

Brian

The ones you cannot fix are where the part is entirely made of the rubbery stuff. I also sometimes come across this issue on blind persons whit canes. This is the actual material leaching its plasticizer unfortunately, and nothing can be done. However the ones where its a kind of paint can have it removed as mentioned. The trouble is that underneath, the plastic an be any old colour and the device, like a walkman or whatever then looks like it was designed by a colour blind madman...! Brian

I don't appear to have any white spirit. SWMBO'd doesn't like the pong from oil based paints so everything uses water for clean up...

Er no Gin is ethanol, like other alcoholic drinks. Meths is methanaol and isn't good for you. Well isn't good for you in smaller quantities than ethanol. But if methanol doesn't work, ethanol isn't likely to either.

Surprisingly google only seems to come up with getting this crap off the internal trim of some VW cars. Detergent and water or almost neat iso-propanol are mentioned or some weird cleaning agents from US $1 stores, together with abrasive pads and elbow grease. B-(

Limonene based, I want some anyway. Many years ago they got some at work and it was brilliant stuff for all manner of sticky residues. It's been on my list of "buy some when you see it and remember you want it" ever since... Work didn't stock it long enough for some to be liberated, don't know why.

A soak with washing powder might be worth a try, that stuff is quite "agreesive". Don't have a dishwasher so don't have DW agents. Jif, maybe.

But this stuff isn't just a thick grease it's only like that. The things that have vaguely touched it so far have only softened it, not lifted and disolved like grease does into "soapy water".

Not come across that. This kit and my little MP3 player have nice black plastic underneath this transparent gunk as the labeling silkscreen printing is on the plastic under the gunk. I'll be well pleased if I can get the whole of the case as good as one of the ends currently is, nice smooth, shiny black. B-)

Yes, one of the citrus-based cleansers. I've some by Eopver and it will remove an amazing number of things when neat. If the label says "Flammable" it's the good stuff.

Apparently soft touch finishes are polyurethane based. So that while its deteriorating with age the usual range of everyday solvents, water, white spirit, citrus aren't going to soften it any further.

Possibly a quick wipe over with acetone might work providing any residue is quickly removed before it starts to bite into the plastic underneath. Possibly with soap and water. Although there again cleaning anything made of plastic with acetone can leave a sticky feel which will need to be polished off.

Although obviously not everyone has the odd can of acetone hanging around. While those who have, have no reason to know whether more easily obtainable nail varnish remover would still act as an effective perfumed substitute nowadays. Or has fallen foul of safety regs.

There are various proprietary solvents targeted specifically at polyurethane - including foam - Globe Kleen and Foam Off etc. but these will probably only be available in uneconomic sizes. For a one-off at least.

michael adams

...

Meths is ethanol with a trace of methanol + dye.

NT

Maybe other people got there before you! :-)

We don't "lose" too much now, but cans of "air" seem to vanish on a regular basis, I have one hidden under lock and key for contaminated keyboards.