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I am in the process of unmounting some old wood stamps to use as clings.
I have a very old (cheap) set of Christmas images that are being very stubborn about letting go of old foam. I have tried using the microwave. They came off the wood easily; however, I can only pick bits of foam off at a time, and I'm not sure they will ever be clean enough to use as clings.
HELP?! I don't want to throw them away, because some of the images are pretty darn cute. I haven't tried any kind of solvent, because I don't know what is safe for the rubber.
I've used both Goo Gone and Un-Du and it worked great. I did have a bowl of soapy water next to me and threw the rubber in there to make sure all the solvent was washed off it. I've had some like you're talking about, where the foam won't come off, and neither the microwave nor the freezer helped I was able to get some of it off by rubbing with my thumbs or with a pink eraser, but sweet lord, by the time I would have finished with those, I'd have no skin left on my thumbs and several decades would have passed. I prefer the Un-Du, because it has the nice little scraper on it, but I had a couple of old TAC sets where the cushion was also red rubber and the adhesive was some kind of white goopy stuff reinforced with threads, and Goo Gone was absolutely the only thing that worked on those. (For the record, I don't recommend trying to take those off the cushion, but I bought them used and whoever had them first put the Tack-It-Over-and-Over on the backs in big globs instead of a thin layer. The big globs made them not stamp evenly :( )
The Duck adhesive remover and GooGone worked best for me, but still didn't get all of it. Had to throw out a couple of the stamps. Waaah! But saved several. Thank you.
I've used Goo Gone on my stamps to get the adhesive off. I peeled as much of the foam off as I could then I put them in a shallow dish with the Goo Gone on them and soaked them for about 15 minutes at a time until the foam residue came off. When I was unmounting my stamps, if the foam came off in one piece and had a nice smooth surface, I just left the foam on and put my ATIO&O on the foam. I found that SU stamps come right off the block - most times without having to put them in the microwave or freezer. The hardest ones to get them off the block cleanly without the foam ripping were the cheap one's I bought at Michaels. Go figure. The other brands were somewhere in between.
I found the opposite was true for me. I've never had a problem removing the foam, but I unmounted some SU stamps for someone before I sent them, & whoa. I tried peeling the foam off first. Then I put them in the microwave for 15 seconds, then 30 seconds & finally 2 minutes. Didn't even get the wood warm. I finally sent them anyway & hopefully they worked okay. I never had the problem with any other woodmounted stamps. I guess each stamp has its own personality.
__________________ Keep what is worth keeping
and with the breath of kindness
blow the rest away.
I think I would have left it and just mounted it on cling. So what if it is double thick? You might even get a better impression without using a stamping table pad.
I first try scraping the adhesive off with an old exacto knife. That allows me to get underneath and if I'm lucky it peels off. Then it's Un-du plus either the knife or a foot buffer, pumice like pedicure tool, that works great to sand/peel it off.
You could always leave the foam on and use tack it over and over on the foam
Quote:
Originally Posted by wavejumper
I think I would have left it and just mounted it on cling. So what if it is double thick? You might even get a better impression without using a stamping table pad.
The tack-it-over-and-over on the foam works great; the double-thick not so much: it actually makes the stamp kind of unstable and makes for a worse impression.
The thing is, with these stamps that don't want to let loose of the foam - the foam usually also does not want to let loose of the wood block. So you end up with some chunks of foam on the block and some still stuck to the rubber die. One way or another, you have to get the pieces of foam off the rubber before adding whatever method of cling you want to use. It's not just an OCD thing - it's a "this stamp won't work at all until the foam comes off" thing.
It's not a Comotion stamp giving you fits, is it? Well, if not then they are both problems! I have 11 Comotion stamps. Most have been done, a few left, and I dread doing them. I started with the adhesive remover thingy. Looks like crepe soled shoes. It will abrade the foam off. Then I did whatever was needed to get the glue layer off. It acts like a film, not liquid glue that has dried. It's tenacious!
My Goo Gone bottle says not to use on rubber. That didn't stop me from using it...briefly and with super-washing after to remove every last trace of it. I could probably leave the glue film and put it on the EZMount, as long as every little bit of foam is gone.
But no double layers of foam, no Tack It Over and Over, those don't work for me. Carla and Shaz had some interesting ideas on how to get the foam off. I may try those with those last 3 Comotion stamps.
How to get old foam off of bare rubber
Thank you for all the suggestions.
