Help! How to remove spray foam from black door frame

6 years ago

Hi all,

We are in a bit of a pickle here.

We replaced our dining room window with a great new patio door, which was installed by my husband and our neighbour (who’s very handy).

Hubby was very confident he’d be able to do the minor finishing touches. However, he’s encountered two big problems with the spray foam he did yesterday:

He sprayed too much and it expanded over the door frame
Then he panicked and tried removing it before it was cured (which we now know was a big no-no).

So we’re now left with smudges of spray foam we can’t get off. The frame was painted black by the manufacturer.

he’s tried scraping it but we’re worried about scratching the finish
he’s tried acetone but it seemed to remove some paint at the bottom.

Do you have ANY idea how we can safely remove this? Hubby wants to cover it with trim which would be such a shame since the whole point of the black frame was to stand out.

Featured Answer

Janine DG
Original Author

6 years ago

Thank you both! We’ll try these methods.

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Comments (8)

User
6 years ago
In my experience, acetone only works on uncured foam.

Try a plastic chore girl, then McGuires Cleaner Wax.

The chore girl will remove the foam, but will leave swirl marks, the McGuires may clean up the swirls.

I had to remove foam from a black electronics box.

Try a test area first.
PRO
Joseph Corlett, LLC
6 years ago
Credit card and Goof-Off.
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The_Lane_Duo
5 years ago
Try WD40 if you haven't already gotten it off.
Megan Chown
4 years ago
@Janine DG - did you end up finding a solution?? :) We just ran into the same problem.
J37 D
3 years ago
I have 9 black windows down stairs and all of them are covered in spray foam. I’ve tried acetone, but it also ate away my black paint on my vinyl windows. The only thing that works to remove just the spray foam is fingernail polish remover. You will use a lot of it and a lot of rags but it works well. It does take a bit of time and elbow grease fyi…but at least it doesn’t take the paint off. The windows where I used acetone, it made them very dull and left a white film so I am going to see if any of my car detailing products will work to shine my window back up. There is a lot of great products made for car vinyl to bring the black back. I haven’t gotten there yet but I’ll keep you posted if it gives it that brand new look back. Save yourself some time and headaches by using fingernail polish remover to remove spray foam from black windows!
J37 D
3 years ago
Back with an update…the car vinyal products made the windows look smeared. However, Maguires Car polish made them look new. polish your vinyal like you would a car…and wipe off with a clean microfiber cloth. they might look a little streaky at first, but when i came back the next day they looked great. dont use compound first like you would a car….that seemed to take some of the paint off too fyi. just polish! Happy scrubbing!
Megan Chown
3 years ago
Thanks so much for sharing! My contractor ended up scrapping it off, trying to repaint them, and ended up ordering us a new door… I’ll let him know about your suggestion so he can try it if this ever happens again…