Removing a very old pickguard's protective paper

[Elaine S. Hartstein]

I have about 80 old black self-adhesive acoustic pickguards with protective brown paper stuck to their fronts. They must be pretty old, and this paper is not coming off without a fight. I tried naptha, alcohol, and goo gone, but I didn't want to ruin the self-adhesive side (which seems to be ok), so I didn't soak it very long. I also tried a blow dryer, but I didn't like the way the thing started curling up, and it didn't seem to help anyway.

So my question is: does anyone know how to remove this paper, or should I throw them out?

Thanks.

[Christian Johnson]

The only thing I know of is naptha. You'll have to soak it for a while.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Chemtronics makes a spray for removing Adhesive labels. It is a bit pricey but I like having a can around. it penetrates the paper. No guarantee it will work but... Just do a google search for Chemtronics Adhesive remover.

Joshua

[Magnus Hultin]

I recently came across two NOS electric japanese seventies guitars, one LP Goldtop and one SG, where all plastic covers had this kind of paper protection left on. Both are Sigmas.

I removed them and let them lay in hot water for a while and scraped the wet paper off with a plastic scraper. Then the adhesive below was fairly easy to remove with naphta. You could try that on a few.

What type of pickguards are they, are they celluloid type of plastic in turtoise, or are they black?



If You consider throwing them away You can throw them my way, I like challenges like this...


My pieces:

[Elaine S. Hartstein]

I'm happy to report that after soaking a pickguard in water, I was able to peel the protective paper with minimal damage to my fingernail, and the self-adhesive back also seems to be unharmed. Thanks!

[Tim Mace]

Try WD40 in a spot. You never know.Also extremely fine steel wool or abrasive 3M fiberpad.Just be careful.

[Tim Mace]

Nevermind I didn't read far enough down though WD40 has come thru for me on stubborn adhesives w/o hurting
material.