While thinking about and planning for using a heat gun to flatten the raised paint on the Sender front panel, I had been looking for a suitable tool to press and hold the softened paint flat while it cooled. Using my fingers was out of the question. I eventually remembered the old pink, natural rubber, pencil erasers we used to use in school, the ones with the bevelled ends. They would make the perfect tool for that work. Took a while to find them and I was pleased to discover they are still called ‘Pink Pearl’ and come in several sizes. I ended up buying two sizes.
Fast forward to the cleaning of the Sender front panel without using a heat gun. All of decals on the panel are original and in very good shape, so need to be saved. How do you get close to them with a big fat finger, wrapped in a cloth covered in polish without going over the decals accidentally and doing some serious damage to them? The erasers suddenly came back to mind. They are soft and have lots of straight, crisp edges on them. It was worth giving them a try.
The test decal became the FREQUENCY MC one on the left side, directly under the door opening. I lined the side of the eraser up along the left edge of the decal and used a C-clamp to hold it in place. I had to play with the tension of the clamp a bit to find the point where the pressure applied starts to mushroom the eraser and then slowly back off until the edge of the eraser along the decal straightened out. The lower edge of the FREQUENCY MC decal is longer than the eraser, but it was an easy task to clean along half the decal and then move the eraser forward to clean the remaining section. I am quite pleased with the results.
I will not be able to reach all of the rectangular decals with the limited range of the C-clamp, but enough to help. The curved decals are another matter.
David
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