Harbor Freight Hot Blade Decal Remover tip

TheShanMan

Well-known member

Donor 2011, 2024
Joined
Sep 9, 2008
Messages
5,657
Reaction score
725
Location
Hillsboro, Oregon
Like many here, I have found this tool to be extremely helpful in removing decals. Specifically I'm in the process of stripping all the vinyl off of my pole position cab (I have had no luck uncovering the original artwork with a number of paint strippers). But the one problem I had with it is that successful stripping required a good deal of pressure to keep the blade under the vinyl. Well, the main unit is clearly not designed for such pressure - they just stuck a razor blade attachment onto a standard cheapie soldering iron. So the problem I ran into is after a short time of use it started to bend right where the handle meets the metal shaft, and eventually broke out completely.

The solution which worked wonderfully was to take out the razor blade attachment and stick it in my old radio shack desoldering iron. The attachment shaft is the perfect size for the desoldering iron and the heat transfer to the razor blade is wonderful. I did the second side of my pole position and back panel with no trouble at all (the HF unit broke half way through the 1st side). The desoldering iron is very sturdy and holds up very well to the pressure that was required to strip the side art. This combination gets a big thumbs up from me so I wanted to recommend it to all of you.

index.jsp
pRS1C-2160644w345.jpg


Here's the link to the desoldering iron: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062731
 
Interesting Jeffery. I am still using and loving my original unit and have not experienced the issues you have. If I have any issues with my unit in the future, I'll be swapping the tip of my unit to the base of the unit you recommended. Very helpful.

Cheeri-o
 
Tip

Good tip. I have gone through 10 of those things in the last few months. I just expect to throw one away after every cab I do. Maybe now, they will last.
 
I think it's worth mentioning that after the HF unit broke, I transferred the blade attachment to my "quality" soldering iron (IIRC it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $50). I could tell that it was going to suffer the same fate so I quickly started to baby it, and as a result I had a lot of trouble trying to strip the vinyl since I couldn't apply the needed pressure. So I don't think you can blame the HF unit too much for being poor quality, although they should have found a sturdier unit like the RS one for sure.
 
When my first one broke, I used a set of needlenose vice-grips as the handle and it worked pretty good.
 
Back
Top Bottom