Removing chewing gum from carpets

Flavia Perugini <fperugini [at] mountvernon__org> writes

>We have a serious problem with chewing gum being dropped by visitors
>onto the modern carpets in our buildings.  Several attempts to
>remove the gum have been made but we are still looking for the best
>method and material. ...

Freezing will render the chewing gum hard and brittle, which might
enable you to use various sharp and pointed tools to break it down
into small pieces which can then be removed by vacuum cleaning or
with tweezers. If freezing of the whole object is not possible, you
might try freezing spray (used to check the temperature control of
freezers in freezing industry) or cooling sprays used in sport
(caution: some of them have additional additives which you would not
like to have on your object). Depending on the surface of your
object and accessibility of the area, sometimes even the use of
"coldpacks" (against head ache, enclosed bags, which can be frozen)
or other freezer-elements for portable cooling boxes on both sides
of a thin object help.

For *all* methods: be aware that there will be some condensation, as
you have to access the frozen gum. Good luck,

Karin von Lerber
Prevart GmbH
Oberseenerstr. 93
CH-8405 Winterthur
+41 52 233 12 54
Fax: +41 52 233 12 57


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:36
                 Distributed: Sunday, January 30, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-18-36-009
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