Hello,

I recently acquired an old AEM7 numberboard, still covered in paper. Unfortunately, the adhesive appears dried into a hard crust in places, and the paper itself is not peeling easily.

I've read online that people have used goo gone and WD40 to loosen it, as well as using razor blades to scrape.

I would like to avoid marring the surface if at all possible, and I was curious if anyone knew of a good way to accomplish this without harming the surface too much.

Thank you for your assistance!

Chris

Start with soaking in a bucket of hot water.

Maybe a little dish soap.

Leave it over night.

-Hudson

You and 129 other people yesterday afternoon (I assume all male).

Part of the consideration is that these are NOS--New Old Stock, spares that were never installed on the locos, and that these are still wearing their protective adhesive coverings applied post-manufacturing. That's what Chris (and I assume most of the other fans who bought these yesterday) is dealing with.

One of my friends who purchased one yesterday cleaned it up real nice by peeling off the paper and scrubbing away the sticky residue using warm water.

Hope this helps.

Try using a hairdryer. Warm it a little and start peeling.

Bernie

Another tip from the Teeming Masses: vegetable oil.

I found the "lottery" for the "shelf-stock" AEM-7 number boards on the farewell excursion to be a little humorous. How much do you think they are worth after flooding the market with over 100 of them at once? It's not like the old days when a fan would slip a shop foreman a box of stogies or a bottle to "liberate" artifacts from a deadline loco, and have a one-of-a-kind piece from a locomotive that was actually used in operation.

I was also wondering why no follow-up comments on the trip by anyone here who was on it. (You will probably be able to read mine on the Akron RR Club blog in the next few days - if I can get around to writing it). Perhaps there aren't any because the trip generally went well and even operated early back into DC? About the only real complaint I could think of was the cafe running out of soft drinks, except for diet, before lunchtime, and not, as far as I know, getting any more (trust me, as a former LSA, it's possible to go shopping and make an en-route purchase - especially with an over two-hour layover at Wilmington shops. I've gone shopping in St. Albans, VT during the U. S. Customs inspection on the old Montrealer). If they did get more they never announced it.

As an aside, I heard from some long-time Washington Terminal employees years ago that when Amtrak took over all of the food service operations from the original operating railroads, that tons of their dinnerware went into the dumpster, and employees were prohibited from saving any of it under threat of termination. I guess Amtrak has learned how to squeeze revenue from it's obsolete supplies.