Removal of painted on logo and name ?

[NascarFool]

Is it possible to wet sand painted on graphics ? They were painted on the factory paint (clear coat). Could I just wet sand the graphics using 600 grit to 2000 grit followed with buffing with #85 ? The company name and number need to be removed to sell the vehicle. I think wet sanding would be cheaper than repainting.

[Mike Phillips]

One of the problems you want to be careful of is sanding too much on the clear coat surrounding the painted-on graphics as you are limited in the film-build you have to work with and getting your sanding marks out of the factory clear may be difficult.

I would wonder if you could get some kind of solvent that will remove the painted-on graphics but wouldn't' affect the clear coat?

Your idea sounds doable, I don't think you need to start at such a coarse grit sanding paper, think about #1200 or #1500 Nikken in the Meguiar's line.

Maybe Mike Pennington or Joe aka Superior Shine will chime in with their experience...

[travisdecpn]

The only problem with removing graphics that have been on the vehicle for more than a few years is that there almost seem to be ghost images left behind. It's just like removing old molding, the paint underneath will usually be darker than the paint on the rest of the panel. At least you'll get free advertising.

[NascarFool]

Originally posted by travisdecpn
At least you'll get free advertising.

That's what we are trying to prevent. If the new owner wrecks the vehicle, the company that previously owned the truck can be sued. Some kind of reject law about it here.

[Setec Astronomy]

Originally posted by NascarFool
That's what we are trying to prevent. If the new owner wrecks the vehicle, the company that previously owned the truck can be sued. Some kind of reject law about it here.

Huh? There's plenty of other ways to find out who the previous owner of a vehicle was, other than trying to read ghost images from the side of the thing. If somebody wants to sue, they'll find out who owned it before, despite repaint or wetsanding. Is the thing a rolling wreck that is unsafe, is that why you are afraid of getting sued? If that's the case, I'd worry more about fixing it than sanding the name off.

[benhui86]

no he means that if the guy who buys the truck from the company and has any kind of an accident, the company that sold the truck to the guy gets sued eventhough they have nothing to do with it......

[Ranger72]

I know a guy that does very reputable custom paiting (mostly for big rigs, vans pick-ups) and he uses, ready for this, Easy off oven cleaner! He has no problems with it hurting the clear. I have not tried this!!! so proced with caution.

[Setec Astronomy]

Originally posted by benhui86
no he means that if the guy who buys the truck from the company and has any kind of an accident, the company that sold the truck to the guy gets sued eventhough they have nothing to do with it......

Why would they get sued if they have nothing to do with it?

[Superior Shine]

Originally posted by travisdecpn
The only problem with removing graphics that have been on the vehicle for more than a few years is that there almost seem to be ghost images left behind. It's just like removing old molding, the paint underneath will usually be darker than the paint on the rest of the panel. At least you'll get free advertising.

I found this to be true as well.

I removed painted on letters from a few fire trucks. It is VERY difficult to do. You want to remove the film build from the letters and not the vehicles finish. It is extremely time consuming but do-able.

[Ranger72]

My buddys has a 2001 3.2cl type s, he wanted to debadge it a bit so I cut up the 3.2 Cl type S and just left the Cl Type S. I cut the badge on the car with arazor blade being very careful (it was soft metal, most likely aluminimum). Once I had the 3.2 to off, I noticed the silver look sligthly darker in that area as well as having a ghost 3.2. To help out the situation, I taped of the remaining emblem very well, and buffed the area with #83 and a W-7000 (should have used a 7006, hind sight is 20/20) followed with 82 and a finsihed pad. The ghost mark was gone and I was shocked to see the paint color matched 99.99% better. I guess it only looked darker from the clear being not as, well clear.
[/IMG]
by the way, this pic was taken days after the procedure, and it wasnt really clean.

[NascarFool]

Originally posted by Setec Astronomy
Huh? There's plenty of other ways to find out who the previous owner of a vehicle was, other than trying to read ghost images from the side of the thing. If somebody wants to sue, they'll find out who owned it before, despite repaint or wetsanding. Is the thing a rolling wreck that is unsafe, is that why you are afraid of getting sued? If that's the case, I'd worry more about fixing it than sanding the name off.

Around here, if you can read the company name and number they consider it as advertising. Therefore you can get sued by the other person involved in a wreck with a vehicle previously owned by the company. It's a goofy law. The name and logo were painted over the original factory paint. The painter said to use Easy-Off oven cleaner to remove it but the stuff didn't do anything to the logo or original paint.