B-10 shoulder decal

[jnlight75]

I'm new to the forum here. I currently have a couple of Buzz Rickson B-10 repros and I would like to remove the shoulder AAF decal from one of them. I'm curious if anybody has done this without dry-cleaning the whole jacket?

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi jnlight, welcome to the forum. I've never seen a repro B-10 but if the decal is applied in the same manner as on originals I would imagine you would need to use some petrolium based product and you might end up making a mess.

 

[Curahee]

Why would you want to remove it ? as far as I can tell almost all B-10's had a AAF decals,
even those with patches on them from other units (like the 101'st Airborne) just sewn them
over the decal.

 

[ties70]

Yeah,

in "Flying the Hump" you can see pictures of CBI shields sewn directly over the USAAF decal...always thought this was pretty cool, somehow shows the pride the airman felt for his "special" unit...

I actually would like to try that in the future: Apply a decal just to sew a leather patch on top.

Ties

 

[Anonymous]

You might do to much damage with any chemical, it might remove the color of the jacket along with the decal.

 

[jnlight75]

There are plenty of examples of B-10s with and without the shoulder decal. As I have two versions of the jacket, I'd like one without. When you order the Buzz Rickson's B-10 from HPA, you get a little sheet stating that you can buy new decals if you dry-clean the jacket, as the old decal will come off. I asked them about this, and they hadn't actually dry-cleaned a B-10 themselves, so were unsure what would come off.

I was just curious if anyone here has dry-cleaned a repro B-10 with decal, or removed it in any other way. If not, I'll just let it be. Maybe wear the jacket more and let it come off naturally...

 

[asiamiles]

I think dry cleaning will more likely fade rather than completely remove the decal, but it's possible a not-so-well applied decal will come off almost completely. For fading/removing some gold lettering from a Buzz USN leather name tag I just repeatedly applied and removed sellotape and it worked a treat; you could try using some stronger tape which might peel off the decal...some decals seem more prone to peeling than others. What you don't want to do is use something that will fade the cloth otherwise you're going to have put a patch where the decal one was; I had an A-2 which someone had rubbed to remove the decal and it looked a right mess.