rodeo_joe1 Posted January 28, 2023 Share Posted January 28, 2023 (edited) ..... NOT! Where do you stick the price label on a used filter? Why, right in the middle of the glass of course, and on both sides. Then you let the adhesive harden off for a year or more in a hot display case. Well, that's what a local Buy'n'sell shop did anyway. They had a 'giveaway' sale of a couple of lens filters for £1 each. One of which was an 82mm Hoya UV(0). I obviously couldn't pass it up at that price, regardless of the price sticker placement. What I didn't realise until I got home was that there were actually 4 price stickers stuck to it, one on top of the other on each side of the filter. The lower ones of which had been there so long that the 'sticky' was no longer sticky, but rock-hard. Leaving this residue on the glass - Lovely! And that was after an initial cleaning with White Spirit. (Not my usual treatment of a filter I hasten to add.) White spirit usually removes label gunk with a single wipe, but not this time. I had to resort to a second rub-down with Methylated spirits to shift the stuff; rubbing much harder and longer than I cared to with several lens tissues. Surprisingly, the filter's blue AR coating and glass survived the attack pretty much unscathed, and I've seen much worse filters offered for sale as in 'good optical condition'. My £1 outlay wasn't a big risk, and safely removing the adhesive residue was an interesting challenge, but really; what kind of shop-monkey thought it was acceptable to rub price stickers hard down onto a camera filter? The vandal had even taken care to place the labels exactly co-incident with each other on both sides of the glass! Could have been worse I suppose. The stickers could have been on the front element of a 300mm f/4 lens costing several hundred £. Edited January 28, 2023 by rodeo_joe1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Vongries Posted January 28, 2023 Share Posted January 28, 2023 If available you might get Goo Gone. Have found it quite useful on dried adhesives and gummy ones as well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted January 29, 2023 Author Share Posted January 29, 2023 4 hours ago, Sandy Vongries said: If available you might get Goo Gone. Never heard of it, but this is the first 'fail' I've had using white-spirit to soften and remove sticky-label gunk. I think the double whammy of white-spirit followed by meths worked by a lucky chance. Because meths on its own isn't usually very successful with label adhesive. Then again, I've never had to remove gum quite so age-hardened before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Seaman Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 I've found that WD40 is effective in softening these label residues. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
za33photo Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 Most times Zippo Lighter fluid works for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Michael Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 On 1/29/2023 at 6:07 AM, rodeo_joe1 said: the filter's blue AR coating and glass survived the attack pretty much unscathed Wondering... would acetone (nail polish remover) damage the coating? Acetone has worked a treat for sticky labels, for me. *** Anyway what is the use of an 82mm UV Filter in this Digital age.. when would it ever be used? (Oooopppps, that's a different topic) WW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
za33photo Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 3 hours ago, William Michael said: Wondering... would acetone (nail polish remover) damage the coating? Acetone has worked a treat for sticky labels, for me. *** Anyway what is the use of an 82mm UV Filter in this Digital age.. when would it ever be used? (Oooopppps, that's a different topic) WW Acetone will probably work , but be very careful when using it , don't get it anywhere near plastic as most plastics are destroyed by acetone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted February 2, 2023 Author Share Posted February 2, 2023 (edited) 7 hours ago, William Michael said: Anyway what is the use of an 82mm UV Filter in this Digital age.. when would it ever be used? Well, you can't post-process away the UV haze or distance/altitude-dependent blue cast from a digital image any easier than from film. Also, 82mm of front element can gather a lot of dust. Far better to have that landing on and cleaned away from a 'disposable' filter than risk cleaning-scratches on the lens itself. I'm a firm believer in these transparent lens-caps. WRT acetone: Pure acetone isn't easy to obtain. It used to be the case that nail-varnish remover was just acetone, but most of it these days contains perfumed oils or other contaminants that would be almost as hard to remove as the sticky label residue. Anyway, white spirit followed by meths did the trick, with no need for a more aggressive solvent. Edited February 2, 2023 by rodeo_joe1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Michael Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 Sorry, Rodeo the second part 'twas a mere attempt at humour: i.e. the chestnut forum question "To (protection) filter or not to (protection) filter? Anyway - good that you answered with a straight bat with respect to the haze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted February 2, 2023 Author Share Posted February 2, 2023 6 hours ago, William Michael said: Sorry, Rodeo the second part 'twas a mere attempt at humour Sorry right back. I fear you'll have to be a bit less subtle with your jokes. I'm in quite a serious mood at the moment. Smiling now though. 😀 (Wow, that emoticon looks a bit scary - couldn't they tone down the crazed grin slightly?) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 😊 "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Naka Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 Ugh I've done many sticky labels, but not dried out labels. Now to figure out what White spirit and Methylated spirits translates to in the hardware store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Keefer Posted February 3, 2023 Share Posted February 3, 2023 On 1/28/2023 at 11:35 AM, Sandy Vongries said: If available you might get Goo Gone. Have found it quite useful on dried adhesives and gummy ones as well. Used that to remove sun baked gorilla tape. It worked. 1 Cheers, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paddler4 Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 For folks on this side of the pond: "white spirits" is what is most often called "mineral spirits" in the US, I think. "methylated spirits" is sometimes called "denatured alcohol" over here. For stubborn stuff, I often us a xylene-based solvent, but I have zero confidence that it would leave the optical coatings undamaged. Ditto acetone/nail polish remover. When I use alcohol, I typically use 70% isopropyl alcohol, which is more common now than denatured alcohol. Most drugstores carry it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glen_h Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 Some time ago, I got some ski goggles from a thrift shop, as you might expect with the price tag right on the lens. (Well, not an actual lens.) I found that citrus oil or lemon oil, or something like that was good. Being plastic, I didn't want to try acetone, though ethanol might have worked. It seems to work well for price tag goo, and usually doesn't bother plastics. -- glen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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