What to do with a Boom with sticky front panel?

[Redrum]

Treat the anxiety, not the problem

A different approach

I have two booms, one sticky and one not. For the sticky one, I took the approach to stop reminding myself that it's sticky, and thereby letting it bother me. I don't touch it. I have quite a few controllers and I set one next to the sticky boom, and use either that or squeezecontrol if I have my phone in my pocket at the time.

I have forgotten that boom is sticky. It helps that it's in my shop and real dusty too....maybe also the fact it's not at eye level.

Jim

[kidhazy]

I finally got around to removing the sticky rubber off my 3 Booms.
For me methylated spirits and a microfibre cloth worked quite easily with some elbow grease.

The metho would soften the rubber and on the right angle you could see it the 'edge' of the layer as it got rubbed off.

Now all nice and shiny and smooth (and yes, the lettering also comes off).

[chill]

I bought a used Boom this weekend, and as expected, the front panel is very sticky. I can clean it by wiping over with a cloth dipped in meths, but it stays sticky and quickly collects dust again. I'm just wondering whether anyone has tried coating it with, say, a clear matt lacquer without stripping the original finish. I'm not sure whether the sticky original finish is stable enough to take a couple of coats of lacquer.

[kidhazy]

I bought a used Boom this weekend, and as expected, the front panel is very sticky. I can clean it by wiping over with a cloth dipped in meths, but it stays sticky and quickly collects dust again. I'm just wondering whether anyone has tried coating it with, say, a clear matt lacquer without stripping the original finish. I'm not sure whether the sticky original finish is stable enough to take a couple of coats of lacquer.

I can't talk about covering with a clear lacquer, but with the meths I did find you need to get in there and rub, rub, rub - not just wipe. The meths softens the top layer and with more rubbing it will start to all come off back to the base plastic.

You need to work in a small area to get it started to build out from there.

All the booms I cleaned back to the base plastic using meths have remained sticky-free.

[rcolotto]

Talc

Still sticking to the talcum method. 4 Booms and many other objects with similar surface...
Ronny

[chill]

I can't talk about covering with a clear lacquer, but with the meths I did find you need to get in there and rub, rub, rub - not just wipe. The meths softens the top layer and with more rubbing it will start to all come off back to the base plastic.

I did try with the rubber paint, and it's worked out really well. I bought yet another Boom - this one had an extremely sticky knob, although the front panel is quite good. I stripped the knob back to shiny black plastic and was tempted to stop there, since it looked good like that. But having bought the rubber paint anyway (matt lacquer) I had nothing to lose, since you can apparently peel the paint off if you put enough coats on.

Here it is after three generous coats. The appearance is extremely close to the original, and the surface has the same soft-touch feel of the original, whilst also being dry and non-sticky. If anything it looks even better 'in real life' - the camera picks up imperfections that are very hard to see with the naked eye. See how similar it looks to the front panel, which has NOT been painted yet in this photo.



This has given me confidence to have a go at the one with the really bad front panel. Hopefully I can get it dust free without stripping the lettering off. If not, I don't think the lettering is that crucial, so I'll strip it back to clear plastic. Maybe matt black rubber paint would be better in that eventuality.

[chill]

I had a go at painting the sticky faceplate. I forgot to take a photo of the 'before', but it was really sticky, and very difficult to get a clean, blemish-free surface prior to painting. But the paint goes on quite 'wet', and is quite good at covering imperfections. Here's a photo of the repainted faceplate on the right, next to a good original.



You can tell that the finish isn't identical, it's slightly shinier, but it does have the same soft-touch feel, and despite the sticky and unstable base it's dry to the touch and wipes clean.

It's tricky stuff to spray, since it comes out of the spray nozzle a bit 'frothy', and if the bubbles in the froth don't disperse before it skins over then you get a milky finish. And you can see just to the left of where the POWER button goes that the rubber paint is starting to lift where I removed the masking tape, and there's a blemish round the edge of the REW button. So I think I may just peel it all off and have another go. I'll bet that peeling off the paint will leave a much better surface than when I started.

[chill]

The rubber paint does indeed peel off quite easily, and it left the surface underneath very clean for the next attempt. It took me a couple more goes to get it right though. I've never been very good at spray painting, and this is difficult stuff to spray - somewhere between traditional paint and spray glue - but in the end I managed to get a good finish with a single wet coat.

I'm happy with the finish, it's dry to the touch, and it has the same feel as the original.



(I'm astonished how much dust the photo shows - to the naked eye it looks completely clean!)

[Paul Webster]

I presume that you covered the lettering with tape before spraying ... but can't see the join between old and new.

[chill]

I presume that you covered the lettering with tape before spraying ... but can't see the join between old and new.

No it's transparent rubber lacquer. If I'd been too vigorous with the cleaning, and the original finish had been removed, I understand that the base plastic is transparent, so then I think that black rubber paint would make more sense. That wouldn't be such a bad thing in my opinion, since the backlit symbols on the buttons make the lettering a bit redundant.

[philippe_44]

The rubber paint does indeed peel off quite easily, and it left the surface underneath very clean for the next attempt. It took me a couple more goes to get it right though. I've never been very good at spray painting, and this is difficult stuff to spray - somewhere between traditional paint and spray glue - but in the end I managed to get a good finish with a single wet coat.

I'm happy with the finish, it's dry to the touch, and it has the same feel as the original.



(I'm astonished how much dust the photo shows - to the naked eye it looks completely clean!)

That a very nice result. What did you do for the buttons? Protect them, remove them or spray on them as well? I assume you can spray paint when they are in place but just asking

[chill]

I removed them, as well as the six numbered preset buttons, then I masked the top section. In fact that’s probably not necessary, because overspray can be peeled or ‘rolled’ off.

For the rubber buttons I separated the rubber membrane from the PCB and gave them a scrub in soapy water.

[philippe_44]

I removed them, as well as the six numbered preset buttons, then I masked the top section. In fact that’s probably not necessary, because overspray can be peeled or ‘rolled’ off.

For the rubber buttons I separated the rubber membrane from the PCB and gave them a scrub in soapy water.

Thanks, that's very cool to finally see a solution to fix this issue!

[edwin2006]

What spray did you use? Do you have a brand and/or product number? Photo of the spray can?
Looks very nice!

[chill]

What spray did you use? Do you have a brand and/or product number? Photo of the spray can?
Looks very nice!

I used a brand that I found on eBay ("CAR RER" - link here), and went for the 'Matt Lacquer'. There are plenty of other similar products though - Plasti Dip is probably more well-known.