REMOVING DECALS: Taking advice from Youtube video turned my RV yellow! Help!!

[WINNIE-29U]

I have been struggling since June trying to remove my old suncracked decals off my RV, I have watched dozens of video and read hundreds of topics.

I tried the following:
1) Hot blade decal remove - takes too long
2) Drill wheezy wheel - takes too long/loud, hardly works
3) heatgun & plastic scraper - again, takes too long

I'm disabled so I've been having to pay people hourly to work on my RV and I think I have close to $1,000 in labor and supplies trying to remove my old graphics and I'm getting no where.

Out of desperation I broke down and spent another $170 on a product called "GraphxOff" which seems to do the job but leaves a huge residue.

In the video I watched, the person says to use Trisodium Phosphate to remove the residue, well it has turned my RV yellow.

Everywhere I rubbed this TSP stuff it turned my RV blotchy and yellow.

I have no other solutions to remove the sticky residue, I tried GooGone, WD40, Alchohol a Degreaser.

The only thing that removed the stuff is the TSP but it has DESTROYED MY RV'S FINISH!!

DOES ANYONE PLEASE HAVE A SOLUTION THAT WILL WORK? I AM ON THE VERGE OF TEARS THIS EVENING AFTER DESTORYING MY RV'S FINISH. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT I'M DOING WRONG OR WHAT I SHOULD BE USING IN PLACE OF TSP BECAUSE NOTHING ELSE IS WORKING.

AND TO BE 100% CLEAR, THE YELLOWING WASN'T ALREADY THERE OR FROM THE SUN, IT WAS CAUSED BY THE TSP.

[Mtn Charlie]

I've used this stuff and it works great. Bought it from Amazon. Probably won't help what is already yellow though.

[bigb]

It is possible that the fiberglass (Filon?) contains Bromide, a fire retardant that is added to plastics and migrates to the surface with age, heat and possibly the TSP. The Bromide creates a yellow/brownish coloring to the surface that is seemingly impossible to remove however there is a process that can remove it which I have successfully used on certain interior and exterior plastics of my RV. The process is called Retr0Bright (that is a zero in the middle, not an "0") and was invented by some geeks that like to restore old, yellowed computers. There are many variations on the actual makeup of the paste but I (along with many others) found that just using the developer cream alone with UF light worked great. I would recommend trying a small spot and using the sun for the UV light to see if it fixes the yellowing.
Is it possible the yellowing was there under the decal and adhesive but you didn't see it till the adhesive was removed? A dark colored decal would absorb more heat than the surrounding area and draw the Bromide to the surface underneath the decal.
Give the Retr0Bright a try anyway, if you are in Tucson I would be happy to bring you some of my leftover developer cream to try in a small spot. Here is the one I used: https://www.amazon.com/Stabilized-Cr...a-852303955918

Note: This may not work on paint, not sure if your white sections are paint or gel coat. For painted surfaces see my next post

[bigb]

For painted surfaces:
As far as removing future decals, I used heat and plastic razor blades to remove old dealer stickers then for the residue I used 3M adhesive remover. There remained a slight shadow of yellow once I got all the adhesive removed which I fixed with Mequiar's Ultimate Compound followed by Mequiar's Ultimate Polishing Compound using a random orbit polisher. My rig does have full body paint so the compounds worked here whereas the Retr0Bright would not have worked.

[MadMaxWinny]

Mine were so etched into the paint there was no easy solution. I did a four-step process:

- Scraped with a high quality, long handled razor blade scrapper.
- Decal removing wheels (six of them)
- 3M Adhesive Remover
- 400 grit palm sander.

Then I applied three coats of a proper marine single-part polyurethane paint (Pettit EzPoxy).

It took me over a month of 6-8 hours days. I think mine were too far gone for easy solutions. I feel for you!

[Lemonade]

Just a word of caution. Please use a respirator or make sure you're upwind of the 3M adhesive remover. I'm not sure it's the same product, but my brother was an auto body worker and used it often. I think he called it decal remover. One day he'd had too much exposure and his brain had a melt down. He couldn't make sentences! He recovered fully (as far as we can tell ;-)). Just please be safe and follow the cautions on the label.

[Rossi6998]

Originally Posted by Mtn Charlie

I've used this stuff and it works great. Bought it from Amazon. Probably won't help what is already yellow though.

As mentioned above, I have used "Rapid Remover" several times to remove decals. Works great with no visible after effects...