Has anyone attempted to remove dried rubber band from a card before?

[Zan]

This came in a lot with other short prints. Tried to flick it off but these two pieces are quite stuck. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[brianp-beme]

Not sure how to remove the dried rubber band, but perhaps you might consider keeping the middle chunk as is, because with it on, Orval can still be a card carrying member of the unibrow club.

Brian

[brunswickreeves]

Seek out a local paper or document conservationist-they should be able to professionally remove it.

[bobbyw8469]

I would think soaking would get it off?

[Scocs]

PM

[FrankWakefield]

Water won't dissolve rubber.

Look on Amazon for rubber cement solvent. Bestine is one.

Q-tips and patience. But first, get a beaten, worn card from the same series as one upon which you're about to declare chemical warfare. Test the beater card with a bit of your thinner. Don't soak the card in it. I think that long exposure to the solvent will have the card ink coming off. Rubbing will remove the ink. So be gentle.

Bestine will soak a bit into the rubber attached to the card, a bit. It'll become flexible, and you'll be able to remove it. Rubbing or pulling at it much will likely result in ink and cardstock coming off, too... so DON"T do that.

Thinners for rubber cement are non-polar solvents. Lighter fluid works the same way, but your card will smell like lighter fluid. Water is a polar solvent. Google "wiki solvent" if you want to learn more about that.


Again, do a test run on a card from whatever series you're messing with, so you can get a feel for how much it takes before you start removing ink, then stay safely short of that.

Please post results, so those who follow can benefit from your results.

[NiceDocter]

Try freezing the card and then flick again. I bet it flies right off. If it works let me know and I will send you a bill. LOL good luck …. Rocky

[Snowman]

https://www.nps.gov/museum/publicati...l9nENW0nJQ91ft

[Vintagedeputy]

Freeze it.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Snowman

https://www.nps.gov/museum/publicati...l9nENW0nJQ91ft

Weird, it won't work with the extra "stuff" in the URL.

https://www.nps.gov/museum/publicati...gram/19-05.pdf

Should be ok with it removed, worked for me after I manually removed it.

[FrankWakefield]

I have not tried freezing.


Seems to me that if anything in the rubber dissolved into the card stock, then when it freezes it might damage the paper. But then freezing would freeze water, but not rubber cement thinner. (Which really is good stuff, stamp collectors use it to get modern adhesive stamps to release, and for detecting watermarks in the paper used for postage stamps by immersing them in the fluid in a black tray.)

I have used rubber cement solvent, most recently on a 1934 Goudey, it worked very well. But patience and small quantities are key.

[NiceDocter]

Another option thats worked for me in the past if the rubber band residue is rock hard is to just barely flex the card without totally bending it ....... the ultra stiff rubber will sometimes almost pop right off! You need to do this in both a horizontal and even better in a vertical way to the direction of the rubber residue. The card already has some paper damage across the face so I dont think youre going to hurt it any worse. Be careful and good luck! Rocky

[Zan]

Was pretty much able to pick nearly all of it off with just my finger nail. No harsh chemicals, no freezing, nothing.

[brianp-beme]

Nice...unibrow be gone!

Brian

[Snowman]

Nice! Looks good. Improving it further would likely be risky. You could soften the hardened rubber by using isopropyl alcohol, which would turn it into a slime that you could probably wipe off, but that would also cause the inks to bleed if left on for too long. Diluting it might work, but again, it's still high risk.

I wouldn't use Bestine solvent on it though. Some people claim it's just pure heptane, but that's very much not true. It's actually only 25% heptane. It does not evaporate cleanly like other solvents and will leave an oily residue behind. I can detect if a card was soaked in Bestine, so the grading companies *should* be able to detect that as well.

[FrankWakefield]

Card looks better, well done. Thank you for posting the pic.


I didn't say to soak a card in Bestine, I wouldn't do that, either. But unless you take a card that has been subjected to a touch of Bestine and then section it and subject that to a gas spectrometer, then I have doubts that you'd be able to identify cards that have had a touch of Bestine and then exposed to circulating air for a while. And I reckon you'll still think you can.