Yeah it was stupid on my part, I had a system going, I'd remove the badges with some fishing line (hardest one was the damn ram head on the tailgate) then sprayed the tape with a little WD40, let it soak, then took the eraser wheel and till the black was gone, sprayed a little more WD40 on the junk that was leftover on the truck, wiped off with a microfiber towel (WD40 works great for removing gunk stuck on your paint), applied the polish, buffed it out with the Powerball and moved on. On the areas that I went through thos steps there is no haze or anything left.

 

I too de-badged my truck yesterday. Boy was it a pain.. I used the fishing line trick and I tell ya, you better use heavy line. I was using 12lb. line and it was constantly breaking... So i just used a heat gun and pulled the badges off. My finger tips are sore as hell today, I can feel the keys on the keyboard today i tell ya... I used about half a bottle of goo-gone to soak and peal most of the black crud off then used 3M bug and tar remover with paper shop towels.. After all that I also had to go over all the spots with nu-finish and then a buffer to remove the outlines. I know I will have to do another coat soon just to blend in the rest of the truck. I like the look way better than with the badges on there...

 

Yeah I was using 50lb test line and was still snapping the line trying to get that ram head off!! the others were a cake walk but man that ram head was on there good!! I ended up making using one of those closed ended wrenches (I can never think of the actual name for them) and wrapped and tied the line on both ends to make a long loop... saved my hands

 

LOL I was gonna go to Wallyworld to get some 40lb. but I wasnt paying that kind of money when I could just heat the hell outta it and pull them off. I kinda cheated and used a plastic putty knife to cut through the tape, but didnt think to use it till the end when I was crying almost everytime i was pulling on the badges... Wasnt that I was a wuss, it was cause the badges were pretty hot! lol

 

I found that using trimmer line from my weedwacker works really well. It pops them right off, is thick enough not to break, and it is just thin enough that it fits behind the edge of the badges with no problems getting it started.

 

The line was about $5 over at the Sportsman, I thought about the weed line but I didn't think it was small enough to fit in and seperate them. And the heat gun, you're braver than me!! I didnt want to use anything tht could hurt the paint (or me for that matter) I was hesitant to really use the eraser wheel too... but it all worked out in the end

 

Heat gun aint gonna hurt it as long as you dont over heat.. all you wanna do is warm up the badges, not melt them off... I use the heat gun alot... When I did my bed stripes, it was a must... you wont hurt the paint... I get the badges just as hot as they would be on a 100* day... plus it black, I can only imagine how hot the surface gets in the summer...hmmm thats a good thought and maybe ill test that out...

Trimmer Line??? hmmm thought about that but the only stuff I got is comercial... thick and its got groves all over it.. didnt want to chance scratching the paint.

 

You can get some turtle polishing compound and use it and a damp cloth. That'll buff it right off. Just make sure it's the polishing compound and not the rubbing compound!

 

The regular smooth stuff works really well. This is the second truck I have done using the trimmer line and never had a problem. I have found it to be much easier on the hands than fishing line.

 

The stuff I have for polish is called "Master Formula - Metal Polish" & "Master Formula - Paint Polish". I have seen them at every car show I have gone to, they usually have a booth set up where they are taking soda cans and polishing them to a mirror finish. At one of the shows I went to almost every body there that was showing a car had a bottle that they were using to do their wheels with so for $10 for 2 bottles of the Metal Polish and 1 bottle of the Paint polish I figured why not. The stuff works wonders though