Remove stickers and labels and glue from kegs

I spent about three hours today peeling and scraping the labels off of the kegs I got from CHI a couple of days ago. It was brutal hard work. I used naptha and Goo Gone to soften the adhesives. The Goo Gone worked better than the naptha, but neither worked as well as I'd hoped. I used a razor scraper to peel up and scrape off the labels, but they came up mainly in little fragments, so it wasn't very efficient.

There were mainly three different types of stickers. A yellow square sticker warning of maximum pressure of 130 psi. A larger white and blue sticker proclaiming Pepsi ownership of the keg. A narrow white and blue sticker that nearly circled the keg also proclaiming Pepsi ownership etc. The latter was the hardest to remove.

I still have stubborn adhesive where all the stickers were. I ran out of Goo Gone, so I'll need to pick up some more before I can finish cleaning the kegs.

This was hard work for twelve kegs. If I ever buy any more kegs, I think I'll buy them cleaned up and reconditioned. It'll be worth it.

But just for the record, is there anything that works better than Goo Gone for removing the keg stickers and adhesive? There's got to be a better way to do this. The people who sell reconditioned and cleaned up kegs for $25 each can't possibly be putting this much effort into cleaning them. It'd kill any potential profit unless they are getting the kegs practically for free.

If you could find something big enough to soak them in, oxyclean could do the job.

Go to your local Parts Store...(Napa) that sells Auto Paint and get 5 gallons of Lacquer Thinner and some 3M "Scuff Easy" pads...they'll know what you mean.

Wet one with the other and go to town...EZ as Pie.

Something worth trying:

Depending on the type of glue. I've had luck with WD-40 but it sometimes takes a lot of elbow grease too.

Don't know if Goof Off is any better than Goo Gone.

Acetone from a paint dept. Acetone is also the primary & sometimes the only ingredient in finger nail polish remover.

I find that setting them out in the sun in our wonderful 100+ degree heat softens them up well enough that I am able to peel most of them off by hand.

I really should have tried the heat treatment, Ed. It has been hella hot the last few weeks. Yesterday it rained up here in Dallas, finally, so it cooled down a bit.

I went and looked at the can of solvent I used just now, and it was actually Goof Off, not Goo Gone. I get those two mixed up. I've used both of them at one time or another. They are probably about the same.

I did try WD-40. That didn't seem to work as well as the Goof Off, or perhaps I didn't put enough elbow grease into it. But I am trying to conserve elbow grease and achieve better living through chemistry.

If Lacquer Thinner and some 3M "Scuff Easy" pads make it easy as pie, as BigKahuna says, that sounds like the ticket. I'll give it a try on the adhesives that are left.

olive oil gets glue residue off very well.

Bar Keepers Friend and a green brillo pad takes a lot of them off.

billtzk said:

There were mainly three different types of stickers. A yellow square sticker warning of maximum pressure of 130 psi. A larger white and blue sticker proclaiming Pepsi ownership of the keg. A narrow white and blue sticker that nearly circled the keg also proclaiming Pepsi ownership etc. The latter was the hardest to remove.

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Are these similar to the "property of.." stickers ones see on CO2 tanks ?

I don't have a CO2 tank yet so I'm not sure what labels they have on them. The sticker that was hardest to remove is exactly the same as the one in the front center of this picture that I found in the gallery.

kegs with WARNING labels

They go almost all the way around the keg, and they were extremely difficult to remove. 2/3rds of my kegs had that label. The front left keg in the picture has one of the two types of pressure warning stickers that my kegs had. They were not as difficult to remove as the long WARNING label. Most of my kegs had the pressure stickers.

The warning labels are the ones that peel off real easy when heated up.

If you have a heat gun, that might do the same to soften those puppies up.

Chello, I'll give that a try. Seems like a waste of good olive oil, but I have it on hand so it's worth a shot.

Shay, BKF is my next step after adhesive removal. And who knows, I may polish them afterwards.

EdWort said:

The warning labels are the ones that peel off real easy when heated up.

If you have a heat gun, that might do the same to soften those puppies up.

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Does a propane weed burning torch count as a heat gun?

I was able to remove leftover adhesive with a buffing wheel and some fairly unaggressive compound.

My kegs were a mess too!

I was going to suggest a heat gun also...I wouldn't recommend a propane torch, as that will more than likely just burn/melt them. If you don't know any one that has one, I have to imagine you can pick one up very cheap at the worlds greatest cheap stuff store....HARBOR FREIGHT.

*I also have 12 kegs to clean, so I will be watching this thread closely...

Well, I don't need a heat gun because I already scraped all the labels off with a razor scraper after generous application of various fluids, mostly Goof Off. Today I got all the rest of the remaining adhesive off with Xylene. I didn't try the olive oil after all. Tomorrow I will scrub the kegs with Bar Keepers Friends to remove the few little rust spots here and there. Then I'll try polishing them with a polishing wheel and compound.

If the WD 40 did do any good Olive Oil won't either

When I buy kegs, 4 or 5 at a time, I can usually fit 4 into a plastic garbage can and I soak them for 24 hours in phosphoric acid. Then I rinse them and do another 24 hour soak in lye. After another rinse, they look real nice and usually naked. If a stubborn label is still there, the hose will knock it off. It takes maybe 10 minutes a day for 4 kegs including filling the garbage can. I'm just too lazy to rub and scrub.

wild said:

When I buy kegs, 4 or 5 at a time, I can usually fit 4 into a plastic garbage can and I soak them for 24 hours in phosphoric acid. Then I rinse them and do another 24 hour soak in lye. After another rinse, they look real nice and usually naked. If a stubborn label is still there, the hose will knock it off. It takes maybe 10 minutes a day for 4 kegs including filling the garbage can. I'm just too lazy to rub and scrub.

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What did that do to the fittings and rubber base and handles?

Nothing at all. In fact I tossed all of the parts into each of their respective kegs before filling the can. The rubber or plastic weren't harmed by the acid or lye.

If you're desperate, try Gumout or 2+2 Carburetor cleaner. That stuff will eat absolutely anything. Except stainless, of course

DO NOT spray it near ANYTHING that you don't want ruined, though Trust me on this.

-Joe

if they are platic topped stickers, score them with a fork or knife a few times to break the top layer and then smother them in mayonnaise, rub it in to the sticker and let it sit in the sun. Should peel right off after about an hour.

My kegs sat in a barn for several years before the guy put them on Craigslist.

Anyway the stickers were brittle and started coming off in small pieces-a mess.
Next, I used a wallpaper steamer/remover -it softened them up great and they peeled right off.

All that was left a slight amount of adhesive, and Goo-Gone took that right off.

So if you have access to a steamer (or even a steaming iron would probably work), it makes the task much each easier.

Mayonnaise works on the same principle as olive oil and WD-40. Hey, maybe peanut butter would work too. WD-40 didn't do the trick for me, but I didn't score the plastic covering of the labels first. I have a heavy duty steamer. I should have thought of that.

As it is, I already expended a couple of quarts of elbow grease, which worked, but wasn't fun. All these ideas are great, though, and I hope they'll help someone else. Or even me if I decide I need more than the 12 kegs I just finished cleaning.

I'm a big fan o goo gone. Not goof-off. put a paper towel over the sticker and soak in goo-gone. In an hour or so it should peel off. Or let them sit overnight.

the other thing I've used is a buffing wheel. Yeah, it makes a mess but takes stickers off metal pretty quickly.

B

I use NAPTHA. This is the same as lighter fluid for the flint spark zippo lighters. You can get it at any hardware/box store by the quart ($5) or any gas station place as lighter fluid (not butane). Smells a bit but I learned at an early age, NAPTHA is the only chemical that will remove just about anything, and never leave a stain if you use it on clothes. I use a wash cloth and soak it. Lay it on the keg over the stickers for a few minutes. Use a green scrubby and it melts right off leaving a clean metal finish. It will remove your finger prints if you dont use gloves by the way. Normal Dr type gloves fall apart in a few minutes. Use the rubber cleaning gloves you get at the grocery store and you can make it through a keg before it eats through lol.

billtzk said:

I spent about three hours today peeling and scraping the labels off of the kegs I got from CHI a couple of days ago. It was brutal hard work. I used naptha and Goo Gone to soften the adhesives. The Goo Gone worked better than the naptha, but neither worked as well as I'd hoped. I used a razor scraper to peel up and scrape off the labels, but they came up mainly in little fragments, so it wasn't very efficient.

There were mainly three different types of stickers. A yellow square sticker warning of maximum pressure of 130 psi. A larger white and blue sticker proclaiming Pepsi ownership of the keg. A narrow white and blue sticker that nearly circled the keg also proclaiming Pepsi ownership etc. The latter was the hardest to remove.

I still have stubborn adhesive where all the stickers were. I ran out of Goo Gone, so I'll need to pick up some more before I can finish cleaning the kegs.

This was hard work for twelve kegs. If I ever buy any more kegs, I think I'll buy them cleaned up and reconditioned. It'll be worth it.

But just for the record, is there anything that works better than Goo Gone for removing the keg stickers and adhesive? There's got to be a better way to do this. The people who sell reconditioned and cleaned up kegs for $25 each can't possibly be putting this much effort into cleaning them. It'd kill any potential profit unless they are getting the kegs practically for free.

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This worked for me:
1. Pepsi, as described
2. Took a razor blade in a little holder, went along the label bottom to top and 1/2" wide pieces of label peeled up; 5 minutes labels gone
3. Spent another 5 minutes with same razor scraping up the glue, again bottom to top. It rolls up as you go, keep it clean as you go.
4. Bar keepers friend shined it up in less than a minute.
5. Now to figure out all the grimny rubber on bottom and top!