The Hodaka Club Forum

Well... I got the new tank painted and ordered another set of tank decals on Thursday.

Today, I went to remove the 50th badges which I bought from the club last year. I mounted them with a little bit of silicone cement last year.

I heated them up and couldn’t get the fishing line to not break. So I used a very small screw driver to pry them loose while hot. The black background came off the badges & took a lot of the gold on the numbers/letters with it!

I’m disappointed but I bought another set tonight. Victor

Dental floss can be used instead of fishing line. Its pretty tough stuff. Not sure that would have helped. Getting these off with all the back painted finish is never easy. I have had luck touching up the black and red from the back. Clear off the old paint and give it a shot. Nuttin to loose and we might learn something.

Well the gold is two layered. It’s something like gold leaf with a plastic chrome behind it. The Red seems to be the only color that held. I think if anyone wants to mount the 50th badges with the possibility of removing them, don’t use silicone. Maybe 3M double stick molding tape will be better. Of course, I wasn’t planning on having to remove them when I siliconed them on. Live & learn. Victor

The 50th badges aren’t made the same as the original Hodaka badges. The black & silver Road Toad badges are all solid plastic, or at least the back of the badge is plastic.
So I just made another purchase of badges last night. At least it’s going to the club. Victor

There may have been a different process used to create the 50th anniversary tank badges. I'm not sure. I know that some of the gold colors are tough to work with. I remember we had quite a few problems with the 2014 T-shirts - making the gold print stick.

Having said that, I do know that the same company that was doing the reproductions of the stock tanks badges also did the special 50th anniversary badges.

Gregg

I'v not done any tank badge replacements - but reading about it over the years has convinced me that smoothing on a layer of epoxy on the back of the badge and letting it cure completely BEFORE installation would be a good idea.

Smart Captain. I have some old badges. I will give it a try and report. I'm about to install some badges on a tank I'm redoing. It would be good to know that the epoxy being applied to the badge NOT being stuck to something else right away won't cause any mischief.

Good idea Captain. I’ll do that from now on. I really wasn’t expecting to remove these badges so soon, or at all. But when the tank sprung a leak, I figured I would give it a try. The older ones came off with no problems. Now I know what to do with these. And I’m going to use 3M double stick tape for this next pair also. Victor

I like Captn's suggestion of the epoxy backing on the badges. Anything painted or deposited on the backside of clear plastic can be fragile. Another idea is to go to a craft store (such as Hobby Lobby) and get some thin (.010 or .020") acetate plastic sheet to glue on as a backing.

I moved my commemorative 50th Anniv badge from under the luggage rack fender to the side of the luggage rack-mounted toolbox (Wombat 94). Although I removed the badge OK, I fiddled too much cleaning it up and flaked some paint/gold leaf off. I touched up the red and black paint.and you can barely tell.

Well, I wanted this tank to look perfect, so I bought new 50th badges from the Club. Worth every penny and helps the club too! Victor

For what its worth, I performed a test run on an old, beat up stock tank badge using Gorilla brand 2-part epoxy. I used the Gorilla brand because its proven to me to be a dependable product with the added bonus that it applies and dries crystal clear. I'm happy to report that it had no effect on the appearance of the face of the badge and no apparent effect on the decoration or integrity of the plastic. I simply brushed on a very thin layer of the mixed epoxy and observed the effects over a 48 hour period. I can't say that this result is reproducible with the new repop badges but as for the vintage ones, the Captain's notion of using epoxy to stabilize the badge decoration is safe.

Thanks for running that test Matt. I expect the same result on new badges. Normal epoxy doesn't contain solvents so it shouldn't "attack" paints or plastics.
Ed

Good to know Captain. That was one of the factors I was unsure of not knowing the chemical details of epoxy. The other factor was whether the contractility of epoxy as it dries would create enough traction to distort the badge decoration. Happily not the case - at least with the classic badges. Thanks Captain.

Got the new tank on today, finally! She’s back together & ready to roll! Victor