Grrr - wallpaper border adhesive...

jcs356

jcs356

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Previous owners of my house decided to put a border up in the hall/stairs/landing. When I moved in I redecorated in a similar colour so just left the border in place & painted up to it.

Now 12.5 years later I'm redecorating completely and have removed the border but it's left a film of rubbery adhesive (not normal wallpaper paste) stuck to the wall that will not easily shift. I need to get this off so I can just paint the wall.

Had a look on the net and have tried the following 'solvents' I had already in the house:
White spirit
Metholated spirits
Cellulose thinners
Acetone
Hammerite thinners
GT85 oil
Degreaser
Fabric softener
Windowlene
Sugar soap
Wallpaper remover

None of these seem to be doing anything great. The only one that works slightly is the fabric softener which does seem to loosen up the glue a bit, but I still have to scrape it off with a scraper (and in the process I'm catching the paint behind making a mess of the wall). It's taken me about half an hour of scraping and rubbing to do about half a metre - and I must have 20m more to do :-(

Anyone got any bright ideas, or am going to be spending hours trying to get this bl**dy stuff off.
 
IPA which you can get from home base I think, or if you can find it, T74 or CN20. Nothing will resist the latter 2!
 
IIRC IPA is a close relative to Acetone? Will it's performance be markedly different?
 
Errrm, pass... I don't know how there properties differ as Acentone is oxidised IPA.... But I've always found IPA better at removing gunky stuff. Maybe I just scrub harder with the IPA though haha.
 
audi upgrades
It sounds like they have stuck it on with silicon... You can get silicon remover, but removing cured silicon is an absolute *******
 
flamethrower.jpg
 
sportstractor said:
It sounds like they have stuck it on with silicon... You can get silicon remover, but removing cured silicon is an absolute *******
Click to expand...
Nah, it's not silicon, it's a rubber based glue of some description that's still tacky. If you rub it with your finger end, it will eventually rub up into little balls on the paint surface. Problem is that's a lot of rubbing. Makes me think of something like Copydex (if you can still get that???)

Will try the de-icer as I have some, and also some silicone dissolver as I have some of that as well. Looking at all the various solvents/cleaning agents I have makes me look like I'm a glue sniffer.

I've also remembered there is a specialist decorators shop in Alder****e that I'll go and see tomorrow to see if they have any advice. Will take a sample of the glue.

Oh, and I like the flamethrower idea - I also need to do the gloss as well. Two birds with one flamethrower :p
 
Last edited:
Right I've got some DIF by Zinsser (US) from the local decorators place - will give it a try and report back.
 
Well that didn't bl**dy work either! Neither did a hot air gun or a sander.

Right, resigned myself to the fact that this isn't coming off the wall so going to get the worse of it off just by scraping and then paint over the remainder.
 
Right, had another flash of inspiration and it has worked - metal pan scourer soaked in white spirit. The spirit frees up the glue a bit and the pan scourer is abrasive enough to remove the residual glue but not go through the paint. Cleared about 3m worth in about 15mins.

Only downside is the house stinks!
 
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