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Anapan
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Rubberized coating degradation: possible solutions

by Anapan Fri Jan 12, 2024 9:07 am

https://youtu.be/nShlRVAcb1s

Skin moisturizer!

Just saw this YouTube guide on restoring those rubberized soft coatings on devices and controllers that was popular in the 2K's and have mostly all broken down to tacky or gooey messes now.
If they're only just starting to get tacky, and are easily scratched, but are not completely soft, using skin moisturizer can restore the finish, and remove the scratched look while eliminating the tacky feel.

If they're too far gone, the guide recommends using sanitizing gel to remove the coating completely. This is also a great way to remove stickers & price-tags where the paper comes off, but the adhesive remains. Something about the aloe, or the thickness of it compared to 99% Iso alcohol. It doesn't evaporate as quickly, and while the alcohol softens and liquefies the rubber/glue the other ingredients help to make the now gooey mess easy to wipe away cleanly where the IPA leaves a lot more residue, and overall takes much longer and requires many more applications to completely remove the mess.

While neither solution is perfect, they both appear in the video to be more effective than my previous attempts at using plastic scrapers and 99% Isopropyl, or the other one I heard of: using cornstarch or talcum powder to coat the sticky mess, which I've heard makes the device look terrible, and doesn't last very long.

If you try these, let us know the results!
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