Alternative use of a sugarcube

Pieter-Tjerk de Boer, PA3FWM pa3fwm@amsat.org

(This is an adapted version of part of an article that I wrote for the Dutch amateur radio magazine Electron, May 2014.)

Here's a little hint that might be useful to someone.
When I recently wanted to reuse the case of a discarded (and taken apart) piece of equipment, there were still texts painted/printed on the piece of plexiglass behind which a display was mounted. At our local radio club evening, one of the other members said he had heard that those could be removed with a sugarcube. Despite the doubts of everyone present (including myself), I gave it a try: first at an inconspicuous spot to see whether the plexiglass would not be scratched, and when that turned out not to be the case, I rubbed the sugarcube over the texts. And lo and behold: those texts disappeared easily!
Later, I found also that a layer of varnish on a copper surface could be removed this way.
Apparently, a sugar cube has precisely the right hardness, on the one hand not to scratch plexiglass or copper, and on the other hand sufficient to detach the paint.