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PostPosted: April 17th, 2019, 4:43 pm 
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Joined: March 30th, 2010, 4:10 pm
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Location: Ringwood, NJ
Any experience on how to clean old contact cement from fiberglass to install new knee pads? Thanks.

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PostPosted: April 17th, 2019, 5:43 pm 
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Joined: October 27th, 2003, 1:41 pm
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Location: Fairbanks AK
First try liquid dishwashing detergent and/or scrubbing with Brillo. If that does not work try common solvents: paint thinner, acetone, paint remover. Be careful, some solvents may attack the fiberglass.

Douglas


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PostPosted: April 17th, 2019, 6:32 pm 
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Joined: June 28th, 2001, 7:00 pm
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Location: Freeland, Maryland USA
A fresh coat of contact cement works well to take most of the residue off. Just paint it on, wait until it gets tacky and roll/rub it around like a giant eraser. Wear gloves.


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PostPosted: April 17th, 2019, 8:36 pm 
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Location: Edmonton area
I did the same on my canoe a few months ago.

I used acetone (Canadian Tire), a small plastic scraper, and the edge of my thumbnail, and it went pretty well. But my boat is made of Kevlar, not fibreglass, and so I'd advise trying it on a small area first to see if it would cause any damage to yours; but I really doubt that it would.

Good luck.

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PostPosted: April 18th, 2019, 12:01 am 
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Be very stingy with Acetone and be prepared to do a lot of scraping. If you use enough to actually "melt" the residue you will likely be "melting" the fibreglass (actually the epoxy).

Personally if the knee pads are going in the same location I wouldn't bother trying to remove much of the old cement other than any big globs.

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PostPosted: April 18th, 2019, 2:42 pm 
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Joined: March 30th, 2010, 4:10 pm
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Location: Ringwood, NJ
Thank you everyone for help! I'd not dare to use any solvents potentially dangerous to the hull material and will probably follow recped's advice putting new cement on top of the old one.

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