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Comment by lttlrck | Hacker News Reader

3M adhesive remover is amazing stuff. It beats Goo Gone by a wide margin, I recently used it to remove PETG residue from my 3D printer bed and that stuff is gnarly.

3M 38983 General Purpose Adhesive Remover - 12 oz. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EBNTYK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_cU...

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Helpful tip, thanks. Here's the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) in case anyone is curious what's in 3M 38983 General Purpose Adhesive Remover[1]: Mostly methyl acetate, with some naptha, xylene, and a small amount of ethylbenzene. Definitely worth heeding the precautionary statements...

For contrast, "Goo Gone" is mostly naptha-like light petroleum distillate with small fractions of limonene and orange extract[2].

1. https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSuUn_...

2. https://googone.com/mr_sds/data/2018-06-14%2013:44:51/GG_Ori...

This stuff is basically Goo Gone without the plant goodies and some aircraft paint thinner. It will remove most paint and clear coats so be careful!

edit: I misread xylene as toluene, whoops! It still isn't the most paint-friendly if you don't have a durable surface though.

3M adhesive remover will not remove paint. I used gallons on cars to remove plastidip. It says right on the container, safe for car paint and clear coat. Advertised to remove bumper stickers.

Yeah it worth trying Goo Gone first and reserve this for the really tough adhesives. There can’t be many laptop stickers that can’t be removed with Goo Gone plus patience (which BTW also works wonders for removing road tar from car paint).

For dealing with milder adhesives, try peanut butter or vegetable oil. Let it sit overnight, then wipe off. The only reason for considering peanut butter is that it doesn't drip off while the oil does its work.

I'm not averse to "chemicals" per se, but I like to minimize the number of different specialty liquids I have to find a place for in my house.

Yeah its awesome. Just make sure you have an organic solvent respirator on when you use it. Its pretty nasty stuff.

Does it have the same plastic-eating properties as Goo Gone?

Goo Gone isn't all that strong, are you sure you're not thinking of Goof Off? Goo Gone is a fairly average citrus-based cleaner, where as Goof Off is based on acetone. It'll melt many paint and plastics on contact. Certainly has it's moments, though, and it's far stronger than Goo Gone.

Indeed I was, or rather I assumed they were both maker-specific names for the same thing. Thank you for the explanation.

Yeah that’s a good point. It’s pretty strong stuff. I’ve used it to remove decals from cars and it hasn’t damaged the clearcoat but modern clearcoat is an epoxy anyway so it’s not all that surprising. It will destroy polystyrene based plastics and I’d be careful around others.

Having said that it works fine applied via a rag so you can avoid overspray issues.

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