Bubbled/waved side art - repair

[system11]

I have an Afterburner here that I'm restoring. On both sides the side art has giant bubbles (more like huge single ripples), in places enough that you can thread things underneath the art from one side of the cab to the other. Picture:

http://www.system11.org/temp/forumposts/cabpics/Afterburner/3.jpg

It looks like the glue has basically given up, and over repeated heating/cooling cycles the art has expanded/contracted and formed these ripples. You can clearly see glue tide marks where you'd expect to if this was happening. The glue is pretty pathetic, you can peel the art up safely with very little force, which leads me to two possible solutions.

1) Peel up the areas affected as far as 'good' parts, then clean the glue off the folded back art and the wood, apply glue and firm back down. Possible downsides are the area without new glue starts shifting instead causing the same problem, and the area where it's being folded will be hard to apply glue to.

2) Peel the entire bit of art off, clean the glue off the back of the art and the wood, put on new glue, re-apply. Difficulties here surround lining the thing up properly, as I'll be having to use glue which doesn't give a huge amount of repositioning time. It will be tricky to get the same quality of smooth finish as the original adhesive.

I've already tried just peeling it and firming it back down, it starts to lift in a day or so, and formed lots of bumps due to clumped up glue. I'll be cleaning the glue off the art and wood with an alcohol solution.

So - has anyone done this before - recommendations?
bloodflowers2010-07-02 11:16:11

 

[Mini]

I think you'll have to remove it.  The surface will need cleaning properly as any glue applied will just be sitting on top of grease thats accumulated over the years.  

However that said, it will be tricky getting it reapplied neatly in one piece.  Even if you can get it off it's not forced to be able to go back on smoothly and the art itself may have warped/shrunk.

 

[cools]

Peel it off, attach it to some sort of substrate vinyl to keep it together so you're not messing around directly on the cab - then glue that back on?

 

[Equites]

I've got the same problem on my AB upright, I think all of these are afflicted with this problem. I was going to slowly peel my side art off with a hair dryer set to warm. Then use maplins label remover to remove the old glue residue.

After that, I was thinking of using the glue in an aerosol can that carpet/vinyl floor fitters use.

However, I really like cools idea of using a new vinyl base, that could really work and would be more forgiving in application.

 

[system11]

That carpet adhesive is no good if you try the same stuff I used (to stick carpet to a parcel shelf with) - it comes out in strings, impossible to make smooth.

I had the 3M photomount spray adhesive recommended to me, got a can in the post somewhere so I'll be testing it on some paper and an old bit of wood.

 

[mathj]

did you ever try this?

the side art on my narc cab recently decided to start peeling off

any recomendations on glue welcome

math

 

[system11]

Haven't gotten around it yet - going to try to book a week off soon to get this and lots of other small jobs out of the way.

 

[trm]

I can confirm that you want photomount style aerosol adhesive. It's not the strongest bond in the world, but given the large surface area you have to work with I think it'll give you sufficient adhesion.

I've also got a can of the stringy stuff - it's really like spraying silly string. Very good bond, but jack sh*t use for flat surfaces. I'll probably use it to attach the new floor mat in my Star Wars cockpit as it's strong as anything, can be liberally applied and gives a reasonable amount of rework/shuffling time. I was going to use a rubber adhesive like Atari did (based on what I found when I peeled the old mat up) but don't see any point in getting the horrible fumes and risking dissolving the matting.

And I think I'd also vote for cools' idea of applying the cleaned up sticker to a very thin vinyl/plastic sheet and re-bond that to the cab. I'm thinking of something the thickness of overhead projection film so you don't notice a laminate effect on the cab.

Good luck dude (and get back on IRC - it's been too quiet).