As I was removing the stickers from a QJ Pyraminx, I found that the adhesive they use is very strong. After having completely removed all of the stickers, there was a large amount of adhesive left on all sides of the puzzle. I have tried rubbing alcohol with no success towards getting the remaining adhesive off. Does anyone have any successful techniques or materials that I could use to remove the adhesive, without causing damage to the puzzle?

FIRE

No, really, to avoid damaging the puzzle and removing the adhesive I usually use sand paper for the beginning, the I remove with a piece of razor blade (exacto knife or however you call it) and then I redo a couple of sanding and then again exacto, and if there is still left after a couple of times, then I rub my thumb really hard against the plastic. It always goes out with the thumb method, but then you have to wash your hands

- Greg

GOO GONE!!!

Apply it with a paper towel on a few sides (not too many at a time), wait 30 secs, apply a little more and rub it all off. Repeat as necessary.

It's completely safe on the plastic; I've never had any damage done because of it (if you were wondering).

Goo Gone is good stuff. Try to get box tape and press it HARD on the adhesive that's left over, and then pull it off. It should pull off quite a bit, then you should have an easier time getting the rest off. I used goo gone to take off the stickers from the box for my tetris cube, and it worked great. And those are stickers that aren't supposed to come off ever!

Acetone will always work! Some people say "acetone will degrade plastic".......yeah....it will....if you soak the cube in acetone for 3 years! Acetone will remove your gunk and when its all gone, use alcohol pads if you have them to clean the entire surface.



WILL WORK!!! 100%



EDIT: GOO GONE=A racemic mixture of acetone and other goodies

Acetone is what people who hack smartcards and other types of hardware use to remove epoxy and plastic. It takes longer than the amount of time to remove adhesive, but will destroy a cube overnight.

Well, the thumb method worked, after an hour of work, but it worked.

Tomorrow, I am off to the store to get some goo gone though. Thank you all for the tips and suggestions.

Acetone is stored in plastic bottles. Soooooo how could acetone destroy plastic. Heard of nail polish remover? Paint Thinner?



Acetone will NOT destroy a cube overnight!!! I work with acetone a lot in my organic chemistry lab. If you would like, i will place a cube in acetone and then run GC Mass spectral analysis on the solution to show that the acetone did not pick up plastic residues. If your saying that the cube will be destroyed by bathing in acetone all night, then i might agree with you. But the chances are very slim because acetone is not PURE.


Actually, when i go back to school for my post bach program, i will run this test for fun...Now im curious because i have used acetone over and over with a rag to remove all types of residue.


For all who can read GC/MS i will bring in the sheets and attach both.

COOLLLL!!

Telling someone to use nail polish remover or paint thinner(which I've only ever seen in metal containers) is different from telling them to use acetone.

I would be genuinely surprised if it didn't. The cube may not be DESTROYED, but it should probably be awfully ugly.

"Plastic" means a lot of different things. And puzzles are built from many, many different types of plastic.

Certainly nail polish remover with acetone won't dissolve the type of plastic they use for selling it but do you buy paint thinner in a plastic container or a can?

I wouldn't recommend something to people that might be dangerous if you have not tested it yourself. Since you probably don't own every puzzle nor every acetone solvent you are making some pretty big guesses that could be disastrous to people's puzzles: Try, for example, paint thinner on your V-Cube (made from ABS) and report back

Dave

Pencil eraser.

How could I have forgotten this? This is DEAD ON. But not the crappy erasers. You need a good one. Any one in school knows the difference between a good eraser and bad one. You want a good one.

I would never use acetone/nail polish remover/paint thinner/gasoline as that just seems like a very bad idea. I would also not use Goo Gone on any surface you intend to put stickers back on as Goo Gone tends to leave a residue that can be hard to clean off. Sanding can damage the plastic surface and also seems like a bad idea. I have removed stickers from dozens of puzzles and just use a cloth rag to rub the left over glue off of the plastic surfaces.

USE wd-40....takes the stuff off in no time...

I always use the sticker that I just peeled off and putting it back on and pulling the adhensive left off with it.
use thumb for leftovers. THEN use rubbing alchohol and a cloth to finish

WD-40 can have some really negative effects on the plastics used in some puzzles over a long period of time. It tends to dry the plastic out and make it more brittle.

Stickers + residue removal- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf4vqjtARkQ

Thanks for that Tony. I'm currently taking off the stickers from my Gigaminx and I will most certainly be using your method to take them off. Thank you a lot.

That was to easy. Thank you.

Heat source/ or in my case catch the stickers on fire and watch the burn: Good technique
Using a rubber: Not so good. It just makes a white smeery mess over the puzzle. I'm going to need to get some Goo Gone.