Just about EVERYONE hates removing control panel overlays. The adhesive residue left over to remove... the sanding of the old paint... it's just a dirty, time consuming pain in the ass.
The first pain in the ass part about it is actually removing the CPO. I like to use either just a heat gun (as in the case with the Elevator Action CPO that I will be using in this example) or, if the CPO is being a real pain in the ass, I'll bust out the Harbor Freight heated decal remover... there are a few threads about that handy tool... do a search.
As I said though, this CPO came off "somewhat" easily with just a heat gun. About 7 minutes in and this is where I was at:
About 10 minutes later and the CPO was removed. Unfortunately, just like the majority of overlays out there... this one left a nasty adhesive residue. No... it wasn't "Atari" bad, but it was pretty gummed up. What to do?
Well, you could take a shit-load of time and scrape it all off using alcohol, WD-40 or Carb cleaner...
...or you could burn it off as some have done...
...or you can go with the SIMPLE method... SOY-GEL.
This stuff is just straight up BAD ASS. I applied the gel with a rag to the control panel and let sit for about 30-40 minutes... I was planning on just letting it sit 20 minutes but I got side-tracked with painting the coin door and a few brackets for this EA project. In any case... the following photos speak for themselves. If you've spent more than 15 minutes cleaning up a CPO... you're wasting your time! Check it out (and keep in mind, as I took this series of shots, I simply applied pressure to the right... while holding the camera with the other hand... and nothing "holding" the control panel other than gravity... yes...it's that simple.
(see reply thread)
EDIT: I'd already spent about 5 minutes scraping the top....it took a total of 2 coats to completely remove all the adhesive and paint from BOTH sides of the CP.
The first pain in the ass part about it is actually removing the CPO. I like to use either just a heat gun (as in the case with the Elevator Action CPO that I will be using in this example) or, if the CPO is being a real pain in the ass, I'll bust out the Harbor Freight heated decal remover... there are a few threads about that handy tool... do a search.
As I said though, this CPO came off "somewhat" easily with just a heat gun. About 7 minutes in and this is where I was at:
About 10 minutes later and the CPO was removed. Unfortunately, just like the majority of overlays out there... this one left a nasty adhesive residue. No... it wasn't "Atari" bad, but it was pretty gummed up. What to do?
Well, you could take a shit-load of time and scrape it all off using alcohol, WD-40 or Carb cleaner...
...or you could burn it off as some have done...
...or you can go with the SIMPLE method... SOY-GEL.
This stuff is just straight up BAD ASS. I applied the gel with a rag to the control panel and let sit for about 30-40 minutes... I was planning on just letting it sit 20 minutes but I got side-tracked with painting the coin door and a few brackets for this EA project. In any case... the following photos speak for themselves. If you've spent more than 15 minutes cleaning up a CPO... you're wasting your time! Check it out (and keep in mind, as I took this series of shots, I simply applied pressure to the right... while holding the camera with the other hand... and nothing "holding" the control panel other than gravity... yes...it's that simple.
(see reply thread)
EDIT: I'd already spent about 5 minutes scraping the top....it took a total of 2 coats to completely remove all the adhesive and paint from BOTH sides of the CP.

