A reintroduction and a question about cards glued to scrapbook pages

[puckpaul]

I recently removed a loosely glued 53 parkhurst card from an album. I used a hair dryer to heat up the card and it came loose with only modest paper loss on the back.

trying to upload the image but having problems.

[Frank A]

Soak it in hot water. Move it around with your hand a little. Do NOT try to peel the paper off of it. When it's ready the paper will slide off. Frank

[sb1]

Don't use hot water, especially if its on black or colored scrapbook pages, the color on the pages will often run.

Warm water is hot enough. Try one of the worst condition or cheapest ones by itself. Let it soak for 15-20 minutes, no longer needed. If it's not coming loose by then, it's not going to. As others stated do not try to scrap any paper off, see if you can get an edge of the scrapbook paper to come loose(it may have well floated off, best case scenario) if it's going to come off the paper will peel right off. I suggest running some water over the back just in case there is glue residue. Again do not rub the wet back.

Then blot they card dry with paper towels or tissue, place between copy paper in a book that will soak up excess moisture, I use old phone books, and place some more books on top. Check it 20-30 minutes later and move it to another area of the book as there will be moisture in the immediate pages from the first insertion. Move it one two more times, should be dry and flat within a few hours.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by sb1

Don't use hot water, especially if its on black or colored scrapbook pages, the color on the pages will often run.

Warm water is hot enough. Try one of the worst condition or cheapest ones by itself. Let it soak for 15-20 minutes, no longer needed. If it's not coming loose by then, it's not going to. As others stated do not try to scrap any paper off, see if you can get an edge of the scrapbook paper to come loose(it may have well floated off, best case scenario) if it's going to come off the paper will peel right off. I suggest running some water over the back just in case there is glue residue. Again do not rub the wet back.

Then blot they card dry with paper towels or tissue, place between copy paper in a book that will soak up excess moisture, I use old phone books, and place some more books on top. Check it 20-30 minutes later and move it to another area of the book as there will be moisture in the immediate pages from the first insertion. Move it one two more times, should be dry and flat within a few hours.

That is good info there. If I may add a tad bit more...
Lay a paper towel down on a very flat (formica or whatever) surface, place wet card atop it, then cover it with another paper towel, now place a flat book or two (phonebooks, tomes, etc.) on top of that. Next, start adding weight on top of the books - two liter bottles of soda, or a relatively large can full of coins (which gets pretty heavy quickly) work easily enough - and that'll squeeze the moisture out. Deconstruct the setup and replace the paper towels with new, dry ones a couple of times (and pile everything up again) and as has been said, it'll dry up.

Edited to add: and don't rush the drying process. Let it dry over days, if necessary.

[cornhusker]

I'd suggest not rushing it - they have been glued for over half a century, no need to settle for partial paper loss quite yet. I've used a good thorough soak with warm distilled water to get through the scrapbook paper and loosen the glue. Paper should slide right off. An overnight soak would be way too long. I've had success with 10 to 20 min bath then removing all glue residue by using a razor blade to carefully scrape the residue off (almost like a mini cabinet scraper). IMO, getting the glue off w/o removing card stock is not the real tough part. Getting the card to dry properly w/o curling can be difficult. It just depends on the glue used and stock of the card. I've had great success w 1941 bowman's (great paper that dries well) and then terrible results w the same process on '52 topps stock. Keep tweekn your process on those commons & best of luck.

[Leon]

pics...

[sb1]

By this era, probably good old Elmer's white glue. Very difficult to remove....

[wnp22]

Hey guys....Thanks for all the good advice. For the second batch that I did last night, I used warm water with a soak of about 20 minutes. Results were much better than the first batch! I was able to peel off around the edges, and then what was left in the center came off quite easily just by sliding an old credit card underneath it.

The drying process is another problem I ran into with the first batch. I patted them dry multiple times, and then put them between paper towels and stacked a handful of old REA catalogs on top. I changed the paper towels a few times, but I ended up letting them sit too long, and the remaining glue residue got tacky again and caused some issues when I tried to remove them from the towels. Second batch I made sure not to let sit too long on the towels, and just laid them out bare overnight to prevent that same issue. We'll see how it goes. And here are some pics finally...

First off, the big boppers from the set. They were originally attached 12 to a page, but I cut them into separate cards to make it easier to handle.



And here is a comparison of the first try (top row) vs the second try (bottom row). Obviously a large improvement in preventing paper loss. There was also some warping on the first batch, which is strange to me because they dried completely flat. Just something I'll have to keep an eye on.



I'm a little nervous to try out the big ones, but pretty confident I can do it with minimal paper loss. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated. And thanks for all the tips and well wishes!

[sb1]

2nd pair looks good. I think the rest will turn out fine, now that you have the hang of it.