Just last week a customer of mine came in to ask me to put vinyl lettering and graphics on a van he just purchased. The van was used, a few years old and there was vinyl lettering and graphics on it already that needed to be removed first. My customer was on a budget so i suggested he remove the old lettering himself.
It is really easy. You just need a little elbow grease and some patience and you can save alot of money when you do this step yourself.
One important tip is if at all possible to remove the old lettering in the hot summer weather months. It is much easier to remove vinyl lettering after it has spent a few hours in the hot sun compared to when the vehicle body is cold. But never fear ! If you need to do the removal in the dead of winter – there still is a plan of attack… A heat gun does the trick!
So…
Step 1. would be to heat up the vinyl lettering and graphics – wether in the hot sun or with a heat gun.
Step 2. peel the lettering off one letter or graphic area at a time. You can use a squeegie or “hard card” to start at an edge or corner of a letter and then pull down. It is just easier to pull down rather than pull up and depending on the amount of graphics you could be doing this procedure for quite awhile so the easier the better.
Or you can use your finger nail to start an edge and pull down. Once the vinyl letters are removed there will be glue residue left behind on the vehicle.
We have a great solution for that at Vinyl Images we sell a product that you spray on the glue residue – wait 30 seconds and it scrapes right off in gops and globs and then you just clean it all off with windex.
I tip in a pinch to remove that glue residue is “Brake Cleaner”… it works miraculously quick as well. Spray and wipe clean. Again – clean the brake cleaner off with Windex or the like.