Removing Decals from a Basketball court – wooden surfaces

The other day I received a question about how to remove a sponsorship decal that was on a basketball court.

The first question I asked the young chap was:

“What sort of basketball court is it? Do you use it for training or it is for games…”

The reason being, is if it’s a basketball court that is only used for training, then it doesn’t matter whether you mark the surface. A little scuffing of the wood is okay. In that case, I would be comfortable using either:

1) Wonder Wheel: rubber wheel that wears away the decal, though can slightly mark the wood and remove the polish from the floor boards

2) Metal razor: this will chip some of the floor boards, though won’t leave too much of a mark

However, this was a court that was used for the local high school matches so the floor had to be kept in perfect condition. So what was my recommendation.

I recommended he use a plastic blade, like the Wonder Blade. The reason – as it’s made of soft plastic blade, it won’t scratch the surface or mark the wood. The plastic blade is strong enough to get under the surface of the decal, then you slowly pull back the vinyl whilst lifting the blade further under the decal. It’s quite easy and fast

The Wonder Story

Are you pulling your hair out in frustration as removing decals and stickers is taking too long? Is it costing you money (and not to mention your finger nails) by struggling through jobs in trying to remove Decals?

My name is Peter Nobbs whose family business been involved in the Decal and Sticker industry for over 20 years.

I like many of you had spent far too long and wasted energy in trying to rip, tear or scratch away Decals (and with little success).

Let me explain the background to this story. We were running a sign business that involved installing and removing a lot of Decals and Sticks. After years of frustration and wasted energy, we decided that removing decals was going to be a very frustrating part of our work, though we always knew that had to be a smart way to remove it....... AND WE FOUND IT”

However before we found the answer, we continued to use all the old ways that we had tried in the past, that didn’t work - Soapy water - Gasoline - Chemical formulations - Metal blades you name it, we tried it

Our prior experiments with trying to remove stickers and decals often resulted in disasters:

- Using my fingers to try and peel off a boat decal that resulted in my nail being worn down to the skin... wearing a band aid to cover my worn down fingernail back to the office was a little embarrassing - And then there was the story about the chemical reaction I wasn’t expecting after a ‘co-worker’ recommended a chemical mix to remove the Decals.

Then we discovered the secret that changed the way we removed Decals.

"I’ve found that nothing removes old registration stickers from your car windscreen like the Wonder blade. It’s a very handy little tool to keep around the house and garage”

Philip Clark

The story of how this secret weapon to removing Decals began, is that we just started trialling different ideas. We kept trialling and trialling until we found something that worked... and worked really well

We soon realised we needed a product that was chemical free, safe enough to use on almost all surfaces and could remove small and large areas of Decals or Vinyl signs.

The result, two products specifically designed to remove Decals and Vinyl.

Wonder Wheel: made of soft rubber and perfect for large areas Wonder Blade: made of plastic and designed for small, more detailed areas

AND NOW after using these products for our own benefit, we are very excited to be able to offer these products to you.

3 Responses

Alan

Dont remove it. Go back to the sponsor and try to get them to sponsor the team again!!!!

Rick Drake

I have used wonder wheel to remove striping from one of our production RV’s before. It does work but it took 5 of the wheels to remove all of the stripping and a lot longer then 15 minutes! I think I spent a good 2 days and then gave up and let the body shop do the rest. They got it off easy but did not tell me how they did it.
But I think this is more of a marketing piece more then asking for advice.
I would recommend the Wonder wheel for smaller projects like a B ball floor decal.

Good Luck to all!

Rick Drake
San Diego Productions Inc.

Rolando

OK first of all you need to see if there was a varnish applied over the graphics which is common on most wood floors, it keeps it from lifting when the players run on it and from there shoes grabbing the edges or when they clean the floors. If that’s the case you will need to cut around the edge with a utility knife just around the graphic. Be careful not to cut to deep that you start to cut into the wood. You only want to cut through the coating. Second to remove the graphics whether it has the coating over it or not you need to use a HEAT gun to heat up the vinyl work about 12″ at a time don’t try to heat up a larger area than you can remove before it cools down. Pulling the vinyl in a stretching form instead of just peeling it back will help eliminate the adhesive left behind. Test a small section with the adhesive remover of your choice. Also let your customer know that there can be some damage to the surface to cover yourself if there is any.

Wonder Products

Removing Decals from a Basketball court – wooden surfaces

June 21st 2010 in News & Updates, Wonder Blade, Wonder Wheel

Decal Removal Blueprint

The Wonder Story