Hey all, I havent used my carona in about 8 months, decided to fix it and get it flying again as oposed 2 trashing it which was my other option. So i looked at my rotorblades and saw that I still had the stickers on them remembering I had left them on because of the hell I went through getting the stickers of my first pair of blades. So i took them off the grips and steamed the sticker off of one. The resedue is horrible, sticky and definately not aerodynamic! Any ideas on how to get this glue off? i dont want to scratch the blades with like a razor or knife, i could upset the CG and balancing. All advice is appreciated, thanks.

Matt

Try some engine carborator cleaner.

Carburator cleaner may harm the plastic. I used rubbing alcohol and it was fine. Alan

rubbing alcohol isnt working, someone told me to use goo gone. will it harm the plastic?

I used paint thinner with no problems

Well, I just cleaned off some old sticker residue from a couple of blades. Strange as it seems, I used vegetable cooking oil from the wife's pantry. It worked great! This is somethig I read about on one of the boards a few months ago and decided to try, since I was afraid a solvent might damage the blades.

thanks guys, it took everything combined but i finally got the gunk off my blades!

Matt

Hey Guys,
Next time use a hair dryer. Put it about 1 inch away from the sticker for about 45 seconds this will heat up the adhesive and the sticker will peel right off. This will literally take less than 5 minutes including snagging your wifes hair dryer. I highly recomend not using paint thinner, etc. because of the effects these products have on the plastic. The hair dryer won't get hot enough to damage the plastic since polycarb's injection temp is much higher than the output of the hair dryer, but the chemicals can cause damage over time and your blades could possibly fail, some of the chemicals even after being wiped off can remain and they can rob the plastic of it's flexibility, etc. Remember these blades are swinging at 1600-2000 RPM we don't need anything other than our own clumsiness to make them any more dangerous.
Hope this helps,
Larry

GooGone.. takes less then a few seconds

You mean Laquer thinner may affect plastic but paint thinner (mineral spirits) will not . Its not like youre soaking the blades in the stuff over night. Youre just using it to get the gummy stuff off. Ive used it on several sets of blades without any problems.

Darth,
What I meant is what is say's in my post. Just because it works doesn't make it safe. By using a product such as mineral spirits which robs objects of moisture, does the same thing to the blades. Now I'm not saying it will lead to failure what I am trying to point out is the obvious we are playing with very dangerous products here, why should you take a chance on possibly oinjuring yourself or others because you wanted to save a minute of time. Lets take an example.... say that the injection molder was turned too high before the plastic became a blade, now it's injected and in your hands and you put a product on there that takes away its elasticity even more than the heat did, now your in your back yard flying and loose control. The helicopter hits the ground and doesn't appear to do any damage but it creates a strees fracture in a plastic part that is already a little brittle. Now you start flying again and the blade where the stress fracture occured breaks off. Now forget all about your helicopter and yourself and stop and think about the neighbor or spectators watching. Granted this is a hypothetical situation but we've all seen the gearboxes that we're breaking over the last few years. We tracked it down to being overheated plastic. And guess what? The MR blades are the same material! Don't for a minute think it's safe to use products other than what's recomended by the manufacturer which nby the way the hair dryer trick is recomended by Lite) they might work faster but who knows what it's doing to the plastic. My little rant here is because of all the phone calls I had over the years with people doing just BAD!!! things to their helicopters or flying them inside their living rooms.... I could go on and on...What I'm really trying to remind everyone is that no matter what your skill level something can always go wrong. It says all over in the Lite Manuals that this is not a toy, now stop and think about it next time you use mineral spirits, etc.
Larry

Not to argue the point of saftey by not using mineral spirits. Mineral spirits is petroleum based product and so is most plastics. To sit there for five minutes with a hair dryer is kinda long to remove a couple of stickers. All I do is peel the stickers off the best I can and then get a rag and put a little mineral spirits on it and wipe off the gummy stuff that was left behind. Less than a minute to do both blades. A hair dryer and heat wouldnt that have a greater chance in warping the blades ? Even in a crash Ive never broke a blade where I removed the sticker using min spirits. As far as saftey is concerned, theres alot of things involving a helicopter that isnt safe. Especially with the nitro helis. what about fuel, spills, flooded carbs and the danger that presents when hooking up power to your glo plug. Spark could cause a fire couldnt it ? When I got my heli it was dangerous trying to start the thing even looking at the suggested methods in the book. Also trying to start the heli while holding the plug igniter on and holding the starter at the same time. i still havent found a glo starter clip that will stay on by itself. Safty issue concerning z links, those things seem to be notorious for comming off, even in a boom strike. There is alot more pressing saftey issues to rant over than about someone using a little mineral spirits to remove sticker adhesive. For as long as Ive been hearing about the difficulties of getting the stickers off, I would have thought that LiteMachines would have remedied this by at least going to an adhesive that was not as sticky. To put this on the level as flying the heli in the house is like comparing apples to oranges. Flying the Heli in the house and or around people is in a class of stupidity by itself. Especially around kids who dont have the perception that those spinning blades will hurt and cut if it hits you. i can remember one time flying in a park all by myself and all of a sudden i see this lady bring a herd of daycare kids to the park. Immediately they ran toward where I was because of their attraction to the heli. I litterally had to stuff it into the ground because these kids were running toward me fast and it was all I had left to do to be on the safe side of someone not getting hit. Of course I gave a lecture to the lady who was responsible for letting them run up to me like that. She just really wasnt aware of that danger. Oh Yes, Im glad it was a LiteMachines I put into the ground and not another Heli.

pledge furniture polish!! Will work great and won't harm the blades!!!
yes it really does work
Killer

Hey Killer,
Wow, the pledge rilly worked well, well alot beter then everything else i've tried put together! Now all I'm curious about is how desperate did you get before trying it?Anyways, thanks for all the help guys!

Hi Larry, Darth, Colstonman, Gmaster, batjac. et. al:

The warning label in question states that "rotating blades can cause serious injury" , and "always wear appropriate eye protection". Why, then, does every one want to remove them. It may even be illegal to remove those labels in some states (like California)??

Perhaps the manufacturer wants them to be left in place, hence the difficulty in removal ?!? In which case the warning should be molded into blade in the injection molding process.

THEN ...... it would it be fairly simple to use an additional easy peel-off label, and eliminate all this possible damage to the blades that may cause injury / darth ---- sorry, I mean death, by using chemicals or solvents to remove the labels?!?! Oh, and reduce the frustration of some / most of the builders ?!?!?

Larry ...... we need you!

Just my ten cents worth again.

Happy and SAFE flying,

Russ

Speed Clean will get rid of the glue without hurting anything, www.speedclean.us

WD-40 oil will clean anything !!!!!!!

Dump message [>:]. When the blades turn dangeres fast you cannot read it.
When yo can read it, there's no danger.