David Horner, owner of Restoration Specialties, being the quiet modest guy he is, educated me privately via email on this, and gave me permission when I asked, to share it if I wanted to.
What he told me first is do not use heat. It will soften the material and just encourage it to pull apart into a mess, rather than come out as a sheet. When the material is cold and less flexible it will come off easier.
Restoration Specialties itself uses a scraper as much as possible. 3M brand adhesive remover sparingly around the perimeter of the piece will cause the adhesive to loosen. It evaporates very quickly so it does not soak into the porosity of the metal or leave much solvent residue, which would interfere with painting later. A sharp putty knife style scraper and a lot of elbow grease is about the best method overall. David told me that he will use nylon roloc stripping wheels on pneumatic tools to remove any remainder.
David says he would encourage anyone with the self-motivation and energy to try and tackle as much of this type of job as they possibly can. If done CORRECTLY it should save them labor dollars they would spend with an honest shop.
David prefers customer knowledge and involvement, as customers who KNOW the work involved have a better understanding of why refinishing labor tasks can be so expensive. As I myself am rediscovering, despite all the technology, it's still plenty of hard, muscle-aching work to do the prep work RIGHT.
Folks who think it's simply a matter of aiming a soda blaster at the vehicle and then spraying paint, and faint when quoted a cost to do it all the actual right way, have no idea. Swapping the engine is easy in comparison.
Jim G
