Some one I know, super glued something to his car dash board. He had tried double sided sticky pads, but from what he tells me, I suspect a coat of wax polish or similar made the bond fail.
He then asked me what to use to get rid of the glue. I advised him that I would put this question to this group, but before I got back to my keyboard, some one else has advised him to use nail varnish remover.
Because of the acetone, you can imagine the mess. So now to my question...
What can he do to the dash to limit the damage and colour change? Also, what should he have used in the first place? If anything.
By the way, the car is made by one of the top 2 French companies and the dash is a dark grey in colour, though I didn't take much notice of the make at the time.
Before the acetone, he may have got away with superglue remover, or just careful scraping with a small object. Now however it sounds like it may be a job for one of the roving vinyl repair franchisees... Don't remember the name of the particular firm, but there is at least one that specialises in repairs to plastic on cars, and that includes the ability to re-texture and colour match the repair to the original.
I'll ask him at lunch time tomorrow. (it's a real ale pub and I like to pay a visit at 12 noon, before the smokers get it, to sample the vast array of ales that the landlord puts on the bar) But I susoect he does not like the white to dark grey that has been produced on his dash board.
There are a few others that would probably work, but you don't want to use them, let alone be in the same room as an open bottle of the stuff. Things I've used during my degree to dissolve similar polymers I made, read - to clean glassware after experimental failures ;)
Dimethylformamide - extremely nasty and very carcinogenic. I'm sure my tutor was paraphrasing when he told me it would probably dissolve anything, but because it was so nasty, it was preferable to look for another option than to try this route. Unfortunately I did have to use this a few times.
Methylene chloride - another nasty one, unfortunately I had to use several gallons of this to dissolve my project, accidentally whiffed once and gave me a headache that lasted all day. Says carcinogenic to rats on the safety data sheets :( Suspect not as effective as others though, as there was a lot of stuff I couldn't dissolve in it, as above.
Methylpyrrolidinone - avoid anything with "pyrrol" in the word - it will probably smell very very bad. Definitely avoid anything with "pyrrolidinone" in - it smells worse. Luckily I only had to use this once.
Methyl ethyl ketone - very very whiffy, another not to be used. Didn't use much.
Nitromethane - fairly easy to explode this, add ethylene diamine to give a common explosive called PLX. This is a liquid explosive from which you'll get a fairly spectacular bang. Would think the components would be hard to get hold of for this reason.
Acetone - probably the least hazardous of the lot, but still whiffy. Was a handy cleaner around the lab when I couldn't use water, used loads of it. I think it has a rather pleasing aroma, but some people say it's nasty. Good for removing superglue from fingers and most hard surfaces though. You can find it in nail varnish remover, but remember, that a lot of nail varnish removers today are based on isopropyl alcohol, which is no good.
The dash is coated with a very thin film of silicon oil mould release agent from manufacture which is why it is so difficult to get things to stick to it. I've seen superglue removed by simply leaving several layers of wet rags on top for a day or three (keeping them wet) and then rubbing with a coarse rag and hot soapy water. The other thing which appeared to work well (after the water treatment) was a rubbing rad and a bit of cooking oil. Most cyanoacrylate adhesives have poor water resistance and this combined with the effect of the mould release agent makes them quite easy to remove.
A local scrapyard can often supply replacements. Replacing the main unit isn't for the faint hearted, but most of the facing panels detach separately and are easy to replace, especially when you practiced dismantling it first, so know where the clips and screws go.
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