Sacrificial Strips

[MiracleMaud]

My current mission; having chosen to accept it, is to replace the sacrificial strip on our stay sail.

Having diligently unpicked the old strip and inspected the sail, the sail is in good condition, but strip I am left with the stained remains of the old double sided tape. Although I am aware that the replacement strip will recover this debris, I would much prefer to remove it, if I can. Does anyone know an efficient way of removing this, without damaging the sail fabric?

Secondly, I recently read a reference to a paint on UV resistant compound which could be an alternative to sacrificial strips. Does anyone here know of it, or better still, have experience of it?

Thanks, in anticipation.

 

[William_H]

Removing old adhesive is done with a solvent. Try a mild solvent like methylated spirits then if that does not soften it try white spirit (petrol) or finally and most likely needed acetone. The sail cloth will be quite resistant to solvents being a polyester type plastic. You might find that a scraper will help to shift the adhesive after softening.
A similar problem comes when trying to remove old sail numbers. This can be extremely difficult to get sail clean. The acetone will dissolve the adhesive but the acetone evaporates before you know it and spreads the newly activated glue around even further. You need to use lots of clean rag and clean newly applied acetone to the rage and stop rubbing before the acetone evaporates. Indeed almost impossible job but your glue line should be very easy. good luck olewill

 

[MiracleMaud]

Gosh,.............. That all sounds like fun!

 

[wilkinsonsails]

Acetone please don't use ,it won't help at all,and will weaken the dacron.Meths a no no too.!
It depends on the type of tape used.If its a tissue based version ,when you try to scrape off it will ball up ,then you need percloro ethylene,dry cleaning fluid ,this will soften the adhesive ,but you will still need to scrape off the residue .this really needs to be done outside,and you need quite a lot of it .
If the tape is like Sellotape with out the glue then white spirit will soften the glue.You can also try heating the reverse side and use the back of a hacksaw blade to pick up the solid adhesive but to clean off completely you would still need a solvent .
You are giving yourself a lot of work to clean off ,if you are going to put another strip on top I wouldn't worry . .
Cindy

 

[MiracleMaud]

Thanks for your opinions Cindy. Do you have any insight to the paint-on options?