3MGeneral Purpose Adhesive Cleaner, Quart, 08984

The best solvent for removing tape and adhesivesDefinitely better than goof off!The smell is not good, there is always a tradeoff for functionality vs odors, I’d say use it in a well ventilated area

Its a great 3M product. Its used by many professionals such as auto mechanics to remove decals and adhesive residue from cars and trucks. I was trying it on a snowmobile trailer with an aluminum skin and baked on white paint. If you left this on too long and the adhesive required scraping ..the paint came off! It was ok for taking off the final adhesive film left over after something else was used to take off the " heavy" adhesive residue. I found that " something else". A perfect product that softened the adhesive enough to quickly scrape it off WITHOUT damaging the paint. I went through about 15 different chemical removers... from Goo Gone, acetone. Turpentine, denatured alcohol, this stuff and numerous other decal/ adhesive removers from different sources and finally found 1 product that worked without being way too difficult, completely inefectual or damaging to the paint. For this kind of job you would need to find out exactly what the decal and adhesive and paint are made out of ...for instance, vinyl decals with vinyl adhesive on an acrylic baked-on finish on an aluminum base..But even if you knew all that, you would then have to find out who makes a remover for those conditions ! Its why all these chemicals state: " try on a small inconspicuous spot ...." . Anyway, I have 3 cans of this 3M product to use for removing decals for the rest of my life...like taking a decal/adhesive off a dill pickle jar that I want to reuse. Good luck everyone. Oh yea, Amazon rocked at delivering it as it has for 100% of the hundreds of things I have bought from them. Thanks for reading !

This stuff works great! I’ve used it for years and find it to be much stronger than goof off for goo gone. Works very well for taking off a lot of different substances.

Excellent Product, Excellent Quality, and easy to use.

From VHB tape to PostIt notes, 3M is one of the best full-line manufacturers of general-purpose and specialty adhesives. They are adhesive experts.So, it shouldn’t surprise us that they also know more than a thing or two about removing adhesives and adhesive residues. They make a full line of adhesive and residue remover products.This one is good to have around because it’s specifically formulated not to attack most paints. (3M, by the way, is also a big manufacturer of paints and paint ingredients; they know a lot about paint too.) It’s also safe to use on most plastics. (Plastics and plastic ingredients are another 3M specialty.) As with any solvent, test an inconspicuous place first and try not to leave it on the surface longer than necessary.It’s primarily marketed for automotive and similar purposes (boats, motorcycles, etc.) where decals are used for decoration or marking. But decant a bit of it into a small bottle (I recommend a glass bottle) and you’ll find yourself using all around the house. For sticky adhesive residues, it’s better than Goof Off or Goo Gone, I think.As with any volatile organic solvent, use it in a well-ventilated space (especially when using it on large areas). Use it away from ignition sources. And wear eye protection and gloves. Avoid breathing the fumes and/or prolonged skin exposure.This is a serious industrial product. Use it carefully and it will work well for you.

I was hoping that this would be one of those magic chemistry products, where a difficult problem is solved by clever chemistry. I was hoping for some exotic chemical that was nontoxic but very effective at removing adhesive, which is the bane of human existence. I got half of my wish. The 3M adhesive cleaner is very effective. I had some tough adhesive residue on spring steel. I had already removed most of the skin from my thumbs trying to rub the adhesive from the surface. It works, but it's tediously slow. I wrapped the spring steel in a blue Scotch paper towel, splashed on a generous amount of the 3M adhesive cleaner, wrapped it in a poly mailer bag (a large zip top bag will work) and let it do its magic for 30 minutes. Afterward, the thick adhesive scraped off easily with my thumbnail.Now the bad news. There are no clever magical chemicals. This is just some good old fashioned solvents, including some harsh petroleum derivatives. The primary ingredients seem to be xylene and toluene, but there are a few others including benzene. I didn't think anybody used benzene in commercial products these days. It's a known carcinogen, and not in the California list of theoretical carcinogens, but in the original sense of real known human carcinogens. I only use this product outdoors with good ventilation.I knocked off a star because the child proof cap is adult proof as well. It's the "push down and turn to open" cap, and even though I'm a stout 6'2" dude, no amount of pushing and turning did the trick. I need pliers to pinch the cap to engage the threads before I can open the can. 3M includes a non-safety cap with a plastic pour spout, which is a good idea because the solvent dribbles out of the can and down the sides when its full, but I'll remove the spout and seal the hole and use this cap to replace the adult proof cap.EDIT TO ADD: The child proof cap leaks. When tightened as much as I could by hand, the room is filled with the smell of the solvents. When I carry the full can, enough liquid leaks out that there is a film of rapidly evaporating liquid on the top of the can. I don't think I damaged the lid as there was a strong smell of solvent when I first received the can of adhesive cleaner. I think I just got a bad lid. For now, the can is on my front porch. I need to transfer the adhesive cleaner to another container that doesn't leak and label the new container. That's a fair amount of grief over a little lid.EDIT TO ADD: There are aerosol versions that costs a bit more per ounce but I'd have been happier with one of them (ASIN: B0002NUO6K) rather than dealing with the leaky cap issue and the dribble can.