I've seen it all now!

[tedwardland]

Over the few years of collecting cloth insignia i've had my hands on some pretty nice badges! but then i look at the back and sometimes its a mess, covered in paper/glue and now i've seen it all!!! the back of the No2 Commando has a yellow type of plastic (seems like its been sprayed on)!! i've tried to scrap it off with a blade with no luck!

has anyone any top tips to remove glue/paper etc without damaging the look of the cloth insignia

many thanks in advance

[Bill A]

Try a damp cloth applied to the glue area, this tends to work on paper glues. If it is a wood glue or something else I would leave it alone.

[4966Ian]

Hi there,

You could try an ice cube. Hold it on the yellow plastic for a while - hopefully the plastic will go hard/brittle and it will be easy to remove with a flat blade.
Should be fairly safe as all that will happen is that the water from the melted ice cube will soak the cloth.
(I use this method to remove chewing gum from clothes/carpet and it seems to work reasonably well).

Cheers

Ian

[tedwardland]

Many thanks, i've heard that one before putting it in the freezer! i'll give it a go!!!

[zob]

Hi,

I know and understand the problem well, and although I advise extreme caution with cloth s/t's and the likes - I have had quite a bit of success removing all kinds of gundge from the back of cloth badges with a product called "Sticky Stuff Remover" available here in the UK from a company called MYKAL. However, I wouldn't recommend using it on Melton (such as your Chindits badge) but on your No 2 Commando which appears in your photograph to be a printed waterproof title, it might be worth a tentative go after perhaps doing a dry run on something pre-gundged and UN-military that you may have lying around. What I would normally do is dab a bit on to the affected areas leave it for a little while, and then wipe it of with a bit of kitchen roll. Two or three goes normally does it. The only disadvantage is that it does leave a bit of a pong, but this does eventually calm down as long as you don't use to much, and you let the badge air for a while. It works on the same principle as ladies nail varnish remover. Anyway, my honest advise would be try it out first on some of the cheap and easily available patches off the Internet. Stick them onto a board with all kinds glue, blue tac and tape and then have some fun trying to clean them up; this should give you a good idea of its capabilities before you decide what to do next. Personally, I use a couple of tiny snips of acid free tape when displaying a valuable cloth piece, which does no harm at all to the badge keeping it secure and nicely preserved for future generations (well at least until some plonker with a pot of glue comes along).

I hope this helps.

Zob.

[tedwardland]

Thanks Zob, i'll have a look on ebay for some.

regards

[Luc]

If it is a water based glue you can indeed soak in water for a while. The paper will come off eventually and the glue as well if you're lucky.

But why bother? If they are good original badges for my own collection I just leave them as they are.

[Mike_2817]

I have a blue printed on white cloth 'ORMSKIRK' RAOC TA patch that had 'Blutack' on the back that has left a brown stain soaked though to the front. I dare not even try to remove it.