Soaking 101

[rdwyer]

Had a card with stuff glued to the back of the card. I soaked it and it only removed some of it. The rest was like super glued or something. I can't remove it. Should I try soaking the entire card in warm or hot water? Any other suggestions?

[Cozumeleno]

I've soaked a good number of cards over the past year. Some have been extremely easy. As a novice soaker, I tried to remove some paper from a few T206s a little early and lost some of the back.

The best 'advice' (and I use that term loosely since everyone else will say the same thing) is to soak as long as necessary. One was giving me trouble a few weeks ago and I let it sit for well over an hour instead of the 20 minutes or so I typically do. The result was a clean removal.

I'd definitely give it another shot. And I always use water that is extremely hot. If it sits for a while and still gives you trouble, I'd resoak in more hot water.

[rdwyer]

Someone else suggested microwaving the water until almost boiling. Then soaking for 30 minutes. The result was a clean removal. :)

Thanks for the help!

Now if I can figure out how to grow borders that were trimmed...

[trdcrdkid]

Yeah, usually I use water that's as hot as I can get out of the faucet, because that typically works faster and doesn't harm the cards. And let the cards soak as long as necessary, replacing the hot/warm water if necessary. Here is a pretty detailed how-to post I wrote up a few months ago, based on 20 years of soaking trade cards:

http://net54baseball.com/showpost.php?p=1390170&postcount=7

[nebboy]

I have 2 cards that look like they have stains from being in one of those 70s-80s photo albums that had a clear plastic sticky film page that can be pilled back and replaced over photos. The problem is that there is this ridge lines on the back of the cards that come from the hard sticky cardboard side of this pages. Question is has anyone every tried to soak off this kind of stain???

[Cozumeleno]

Someone else suggested microwaving the water until almost boiling. Then soaking for 30 minutes. The result was a clean removal. :)

Thanks for the help!

Now if I can figure out how to grow borders that were trimmed...

Never tried the microwaving thing - always just used the hottest water I could get out of the tap. Glad it worked out!