Unsticking double-sided tape?

[kobun37]

Any suggestions on how to get rid of double-sided tape? I picked up some plexiglass skee ball marquees with some paint loss. After they got some scratches on the painted side some genius tech decided to stick another piece of plexiglass on behind them with some sort of clear 1" double-sided tape. The tape is in a box around the clear window in the middle, with a smaller square on each of the four corners. In some areas where the tape is at the paint has detached from the marquee and adhered to the tape. I don't want to just pry them apart for fear of causing more paint loss.

I know they're not really posters, but who else would know more about removing tape from delicate surfaces? Besides, maybe the solution will also help those with mylars or vinyl or lenticular posters and a similar issue.

[MoviePosterBid.com]

rubber cement thinner or similar type adhesive disolver.

small artist's brush of the type shown below

works on everything that has adhesive. hold a small pair of clippers, tweezers or wire cutters with one hand while you gently brush thinner under tape and slowly pull the tape away.

afterwards, use some more thinner to make sure all adhesive is removed.
on paper, I generally scrape a single edge razor flat against the paper (gently) scrape any remaining residue.

on object like above, use a paper towel to wipe away residue.

repeat until clean

[kobun37]

Thanks!

I've decided to leave the extra plexiglass sheets on until I can get the fronts sanded and polished. They have some deep scratches and gouges I need to take care of first. Fortunately they're made from a 1/4" plastic sheet, so they should still look great once the scratches are out.

To loosen the adhesive, I was thinking of using a hair dryer to heat the back of the plexiglass sheet and sliding a piece of dental floss or fishing line between the two pieces of plastic. After it's off I'll tackle the residue.

[erik1925]

Hey kobun,

Did you take any pics of these, as they looked when you first got them?

Would love to see the "double stick trickery" the previous owner did to them.

[MoviePosterBid.com]

if the bestine or thinner doesn't work, here's another solution



and if that doesn't quite do it, this is for really difficult situations

[kobun37]

I've got three of them to do and I haven't taken the plexi sheet off yet, so I snapped a pic of the back of the one I'm currently working on.



Here it is from the front, after I got done removing the scratches with sandpaper. Had to go down to 80 grit to get rid of all the gouges, so it's got a ways to go before it's back to clear again. It looks great wet, though. I'm going to make a grooved frame that will hide the banged up edges.



There are some spots in the red lettering and some of the black lines that I'm sure I'll have to repaint once the tape comes off. I'm also sure it's going to lose some of the black around the tinted windows, but I'm thinking of sanding the red tint off anyway. It's scratched and/or gouged on a couple of them. Sanding that little teeny red window is going to be a bitch, though. It's too small to use my palm sander. I'll make that decision when I see how much of the black border it loses.

I may not be able to use solvents to remove the goo, though. I don't want to damage the original paint any more than I have to. They have about four layers of paint, depending on the area. The black lines/lettering, the colored areas, the white and finally the silver backing.

[MoviePosterBid.com]

yeah you definitely need this one

[kobun37]

Well, some of the smaller pieces on the corners have separated already and ended up stuck to the extra sheet. On the plus side, once I do get the sheet off I can try removing the tape from the extra sheet to see what works before I tackle whatever's left on the marquee.

Definitely a project, but in this case it's a lot like vintage posters. These were all supposed to be destroyed and all the remaining ones have been used and probably abused in some fashion. I just happened to get this partial set from a store with a tech who was dumber than a bag of hammers. I think getting them in displayable shape is doable, though. If I ever get the other two in the set or the topper marquee (this I probably have about a snowball's chance in hell of finding) restoring them will probably seem like a piece of cake in comparison.  

Just got to keep telling myself I'm happy to have something to work on, cause no one is supposed to have these period.  

[erik1925]

Great front and back pics. Thanks for posting. 

So it looks like the extra piece of clear plexi was attached to the backside only? I can see the tape around the small window and the 4 corners.. but the front, painted side had no extra sheet over it, right?

And what color is the back? From your photo, it almost looks like brushed aluminum.

[kobun37]

The paint on these is actually on the backside of the clear sheet. On arcade games marquees are made to last many, many years and so they're painted from behind on tough plastic. After I made the first post I figured out they are actually made from polycarbonate, the same stuff automakers use for headlights. Printing on the back of the sheet prevents the artwork from getting damaged by customers and keeps them looking nice longer. So unfortunately the tape is stuck directly to the paint, which has weakened after 23 years.

The scoreboard they were mounted on had lights behind them and the silver areas were meant to be opaque. The silver paint is a top coat that reflects light back into the box. None of it actually shows through on the front. So the only parts that illuminated from the outside were the numbers in the windows and the lettering.

Here's one installed in a machine.



As you can see, the paint loss could have been a lot worse. Maybe the extra plexi sheet did some good after all. Then again, I've also seen pictures of these marquees without the sheet and less paint loss. Once I get the sheet off and the adhesive unstuck, I will use an old trick pinball enthusiasts use to preserve flaking backglasses: spraying them down with Krylon Triple-Thick. The clear coat prevents any further flaking and provides a base to apply paint touch ups with watercolor. Once it's clear coated if you screw up the color (like if it dries a few shades too light or dark) it's easy to wipe the paint off and try again.

[MoviePosterBid.com]

I have a Stargate Defender arcade game.
I've had it for 30 years and it wasn't treated so nice in the arcade it came from to begin with
the paint is flaking, cracked. some parts o fthe wood are dinged and more.

at some point, I will painstakingly create templates to repaint the machine. Won't be original anymore? Who cares. It isn't a Frankenstein 3 sheet

I'm sure you will have to repaint the faceplate,or leave it alone.. you may not have much choice. Using any type of solvent will remove the paint also, which may mean you're damned if you do/damned if you don't

[kobun37]

Different collector markets have different goals. Arcade game owners place a lot less emphasis on keeping everything original because the machines were made to be used and usually show a lot of wear There are small companies that supply reproduction arcade parts for most popular arcade games. I think they're technically infringing copyright, but the IP owners don't give a shit because the market is small, it pretty much consists of people who own stuff originally bought from them, and most of them no longer make arcade games anyway.

CEC is different, though. They're very protective of their copyrights and would probably go after anyone who tried making stuff like this. In the past they've had problems with people opening up knockoff restaurants, so I suppose it makes sense. Someone in Mexico even opened a knockoff for awhile under the name Chucky Cheeze with the main character species-swapped into a chihuahua. So originals are all that exist, and we have to work with what we can get our hands on. Once the paint starts to flake, it will probably continue unless stabilized so I definitely have to get the plexi and adhesive off so I can lock it down.

The Krylon trick also works for flaking arcade game marquees and painted bezels, BTW. If you want to know more about the technique, here's a link and a video of someone demonstrating the basic techniques:

http://www.pinrepair.com/restore/index1.htm



Here's a resto thread on a Stargate at the main arcade collector's board, if you ever get around to working on yours. Lots of good info there.

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=160029

No need to make templates unless you really want to. Stencils are available:

http://www.gamestencils.com/index.php?crn=205&rn=401&action=show_detail

[MoviePosterBid.com]

thanks for that link
mine isn't that bad except for what you can see about the paint cracking.

I've worked on it before and the guts are mostly replaced or refurbished
I tried finding those stencils before and couldn't

[MoviePosterBid.com]

Chuck E Cheese is not just for kids I guess

http://fox4kc.com/2015/03/09/video-shows-chuck-e-cheese-employees-being-viciously-attacked/

[kobun37]

Yeah, unfortunately some adults are assholes, and some of those assholes have managed to procreate and bring their kids.