Hacking Guide to The Wii GiftCard

Step 4: Don't read the fine print!

The back of the card lets everybody know that you found it at Target, it's a gift card, and its copyrighted. It would look a lot better just clean and white. It took me awhile to figure out exactly how to git rid of the text. The top part is printed in a dye, as is the copyright in the lower left. The center bar code and the stuff on the bottom right is stamped with some kind of non-reflective ink. I think this prevents people from changing the bar codes and, unfortunately, erasing them too.

I thought that acetone might be a good approach as it eats plastic, sadly I was wrong.

Next I tried a Dremel buffer wheel, nix that plan too. The wheel gets too hot and burns the plastic randomly.

The best way to remove the text ended up being a simple razor blade and some patience. Start at one side of the card with the razor blade vertical. Scrape the blade softly across the surface of the card and you should start to see the writing peal off. This'll leave the card a bit dull and scratched looking so you might have to sand it down with some 600 grit sandpaper. You can usually find sandpaper this fine at hobby stores.

If you want to take it a step further you could spray paint your own logo on the back with a stencil and then finish it off with a protective gloss.

Comments

[he3r0]

Instead of a razor, get a fine grit sand paper in sheet, than lay your GC on that sheet and sand it down

[the_first_place_loser]

You mentioned the non-reflective ink. I won't claim to be an expert, but maybe this is so that the black bars show up more easily to the scanner. If I'm correct, the barcode scanner looks for areas that arent reflecting. But hey, what do I know...

[Llewner]

An industrial grade orange cleaner works on most screen printed text on plastic. It can eat into polystyrene though.

[shadus]

Try a sugar cube next time, it works for removing most text from plastic without damaging the plastic... like the razor it takes a bit of time and patience though.