70blueshark

O-Kay gang you are going to love this one!! :yesnod:

My car is undergoing a frame off restoration, and I found the tank sticker.
Needless to say after 33 years it was covered in grime and gunk.

My wife spent a few hours carefully brushing off whatever dirt she could with a small artist brush. This helped some, but it was still mostly unreadable.

Now for the cool part!
If you own a digital camera with night shot your in luck.
The infrared beam that the camera uses to video at night will also allow you to see through the dirt and grease. :cool:
It took us a little time and there were some items we could not read, but with the help of a few books and knowledge of our car we were able to piece it all together.

Just a little helpful trick.

If you are going to try this make sure that you brush off as much dirt as possible! After that you should be in for a nice surprise.

jonjollyf4

So did you take pictures of your tank? Lets see'm

70blueshark

I'm working on it. The only way to show the night shot was to video tape it.
I now have to digitize it and make stills from the video.

FinnShark

That's a good trick! Thanks for the tip! Well, my tank sticker is not there anymore, but my friend has a problem in reading it... :cheers:

ORVette

When I was cleaning mine up, I found that even a soft brush was deteriorating the paper before it got clean enough to read. With nothing to lose I thought, I Prell glue sticked the pieces together onto a piece of heavy card stock and sprayed it down with brake cleaner(non-chlorinated) until the dirt ran off the page. Suprisingly enough, it removed all the grime and left the printing in tact and very readable. I recommend it only as a last resort. :cheers:




[Modified by ORVette, 10:14 PM 8/20/2003]

70blueshark

Man I hope I'm doing this picture thing right.

Here is the sticker after my wife cleaned it with a brush:


Now here it is through a night shot camera:


Dave


It Worked!!! :party:

:hurray: :hurray:


[Modified by 70blueshark, 10:11 PM 8/21/2003]


[Modified by 70blueshark, 10:16 PM 8/21/2003]

LT1driver

now how cool is that...technology, somethimes you gotta love it :D

HDIronman

That's really :cool: . My tank sticker is still there, but I haven't retrieved it yet.

gdh

great tip, I am hoping to find my build sheet when I repaint as well.

e3pres

That's an awesome tip. :thumbs:

standup

I've got the gear to try this.......my tank sticker (unreadable under normal light) and the camera, so I'll give it a shot ASAP......

Just curious though....what made you decide to try the camera?????

hunt4cleanair

Nice work!

MYBLU71

Kewl!! :cool: Is that one of those nightshot video cameras that "supposedly" can see through clothing??? :eek: I heard an urban legend about that once...
:jester

gliot1

Nice trick....I was able to keep zooming mine up on a copier and use different copy intensities to read it. I am going to try this one now.

70blueshark

I work for a video production company and knew that the camera could be used to see through soot on paper damaged by fire so I figured, what the heck.

70blueshark

Its not a myth its a fact! However in order to do it you need to buy a special infrared filter for your camera. No, I don't have one, but I have seen tests.

Rockn-Roll

Awesome!!! Thanks for sharing. My tank sticker had no dirt on it whatsoever. It came off in one piece too. That's the benefit of buying a low mileage (40K when I bought it) and from owners who appreciated what they had and garaged it as well as avoided driving it in the rain. It's still kinda hard to read due to deterioration of the ink even after scanning it at 1200dpi, but I will definitely pull out my night-shot camera and see if that helps.

70blueshark

If anyone is interested in the science behind how the infrafred camera works just go to the link below.

http://www.kaya-optics.com/products/how_it_works.shtml

Dave

pra4sun

That's a really neat trick!

Dod your sticker also have the gob of glue in the middle? That has prevented me from reading the bottom half of my sticker, it's all bunched up.

GaryS

Another trick is to use Photo Shop, or equivalent, and manipulate the contract, background, etc. My72 tank sticker was about 75% readable. By using Photo Shop, I got it up to about 98%. It now reads almost like new.
Gary