The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have acquired an early Edison Home model B with a good banner decal, but the previous owner applied a lighty tinted urethane finish over it for some reason. Is there any technique to carefully remove this finish and reveal the decal in it's full glory?

Good luck, especially if it's urethane. You might try a hair dryer and see if some heat will get it to pop loose. Sometimes when someone makes a stupid move like that, they don't clean the underlying finish it will sometimes pop off like a shell with some heat. I really don't think most companies put much finish (if any) over the varnish transfer decals, so there is that as well. All of the plastic finishes are a real problem to remove completely. It's too bad that the old fashioned varnish transfers are no longer made as they have a brilliance about them that the water slide decals do not. Having said that, there are some really nice decals available now and those varnish transfers were kind of tricky to get right. The urethane probably has just yellowed with age. It wasn't supposed to do that, but a lot of promises were made about finishes 50-60 years ago that didn't work out quite like they said in the ad.

I doubt if you can get the finish off. But on the plus side, there are excellent replacement decals that look like originals. Just make sure you get a Gregg Cline decal or its equivalent.

Jerry B.