Everything You Need To Know About Sticker Removal

It's all about using the right tool for the job.

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This must be the gold age of stickers and decals. They’re on everything from fruits and vegetables to durable goods and clothing. Kids play with them and stick them everywhere and on everything. Meanwhile, adults plaster their cars, trucks, and sports equipment with them. What the tattoo is to the human body, so stickers and decals are to the material world.Maybe you use the term sticker and decal interchangeably. Nay, say the experts at Stickermule.

The word decal comes from décalcomanie, a French word that described the process of transferring a decorative design onto glass and porcelain by means of a specialized tracing paper. A decal is a durable form of sticker that adheres tenaciously to nearly any surface, flat or curved. A sticker is less durable and is applied to flat surfaces.

There are further fine points between decals and stickers, but we’re less concerned with them than we are in removing either. While there are specialized tools that autobody shops use to remove decals and applied pin stripes, I remove both stickers and decals with tools and materials that I already own for cleaning, painting, and even carpentry.

You don’t need anything more than basic tools to remove the vast majority of stickers.

Above all, when removing stickers, do no harm. For all but the most rugged surface (concrete, lumber) you can damage the surface removing a sticker or decal. Always use the least amount of force necessary for removal. Chemicals and heat can also damage delicate surfaces. When needed, experiment with the removal method before proceeding.

A basic sticker removal kit consists of a razor scraper, an offset putty knife, a carpenter’s pencil, some form of WD-40 such as the pen or a small spray can, a micro-fiber towel and some adhesive remover, particularly Goof Off for super glue removal. I also sometimes use a hair dryer, in this case an appliance that my wife gave me when she upgraded to a newer model. These are great sticker removal tools, softening tough stickers for removal.

Once you try one of these, you’ll be amazed how well it works at rubbing a sticker off a surface. Use the butt end of a carpenter’s pencil to rub stickers off a surface. Here I use it to remove the sticker on the Red Devil putty knife that is shown elsewhere in this article. Just dig the bottom edge of the pencil against the edge of the sticker and push forward while pivoting right and left.

I also burnished a sticker against a curved surface using the carpenter’s pencil. It works on flat and curved surfaces and is reasonably gentle on the surface below the sticker. I’m unsure why a carpenter’s pencil works as well as it does, frankly. I just know from experience that they are effective.

An offset putty knife sharpened to a chisel edge is one of the most versatile and powerful tools for removing stickers and decals. The sharper the tool, the better. To prep this steel column for painting, I began scraping with the putty knife and its sharpened bevel facing up.

If you notice that the knife begins to lose its effectiveness, flip it around and scrape with the bevel facing down. The offset putty knife is particularly effective on large flat surfaces. Here I burnished some stickers onto a smooth concrete floor and then skimmed the knife under them to lift them. You can use a hair dryer on the high-heat setting to soften really difficult stickers and decals.

A razor scraper is a painter’s tool to lift paint off of glass (particularly when painting wood windows). It’s also devastatingly effective to remove stickers and decals off of glass and other hard surfaces, such as porcelain and mirrors. When combined with a microfiber cloth and a solvent such as Goof Off, you can remove the toughest stickers and decals from glass without a trace left to spoil the view.

Use a razor scraper and a fresh blade and start under one corner of the sticker. Once you get the sticker to lift, pivot the tool back and forth to lift as much of the sticker as possible in one piece.

Carefully wipe the sticker or decal residue off the scraper and lift off the remaining pieces. Only adhesive residue should be left when you’re done scraping.

Soak one corner of a microfiber cloth with Goof Off and work over the residue in a circular motion to soften it and wipe it up. Finally fold the cloth over to a clean and dry surface and wipe the glass clean. The glass should be essentially perfectly clean at this point. If not, use some glass cleaner and a clean microfiber cloth to polish the glass to perfection.

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