sticker removal

We bought our first new vehicle in 13 years, a Polaris Sportsman 570 with plow. It teamed up with our snow blower to make dealing with a yard full of snow possible. See snow shoveling for old men for a more thorough coverage of that.

Other benefits of this particular tool include a lot of brush clearing on my agenda that by itself did not justify this micro-tractor.

Yesterday I was getting around to installing its license plate and the sticker proclaiming we paid the US Forest Service for the privelege of traveling in our own forests.

But where the heck does that sticker go. The legal department at Polaris has covered every square inch of contiguous flat real estate already. Our bill of sale says this is red. My eyes see more black, white and orange stickers than red.

I was not going to spend our entire time together staring at lawyer warnings saying, “Don’t be stupid.” People who would benefit from the stickers can’t read. The rest of us don’t need them. Nevertheless, the expense of designing, creating and applying them are added to the sticker price of everything we buy.

I began scraping stubborn little pieces of sticker off, but saw the Augean Stables in front of me. Time out for a websearch. AHA!

Most recommendations include a hair drier on warm. There are a bunch of chemical suggestions, most of them include warning [stickers] that damage to finishes may result. One fortunately warned me against going MacGyver with my heat gun. I screeched to a halt. Okay. Warm is good. Hot is bad.

Everyone in this country with a wife has a blow drier. The warm setting and low-speed blower are EXACTLY what sticker removers need. Once warm, the sticker plastic and glue are soft and come off in one clean piece.

Speaking of clean pieces, our Sportsman really was red underneath.