The "hair-dryer trick" ? Unsticking --

I hear there is something you can do with a hair -dryer to unstick cels from their sketches.
Anyone have instructions, and advice, and / or warnings?

That sounds like the worst thing that I have ever heard of so far =)

It sounds like you must risk melting the paint and/or acetate...wow. But, it must have worked for someone, so I'll suggest a few more risky alternatives..

You have to really keep in mind the extent first of how valuable the cel is to you, how valuable it is period, and last, how really stuck-on the paper is to the cel. Here is something that has worked for me before, but not 100%.. it is risky, but I have done well a few times, to live and tell the story.

[b]Warning![/b] proceed at your own risk with the following:

If your cel is only slightly stuck and you don't care what happens to the sketch, you can do one of two things:

1.) Freeze the cel in a flat area for three to four hours, next take it out and lightly tug on a spot that looks like it has least resistance, if there is one that exists. If you find it very easy to pull the sketch apart from this area, it just might be the same all over, but proceed with caution and by all means don't tug hard enough to lose paint. If you find that you're still not able to pull the sketch away with light resistance, and it feels like you might damage it then stop.

2.) Now if you don't care about the sketch being damaged or if step one didn't work you can take a wet, clean, sponge and turn the cel sketch side up on a flat sevice (stainless steel?) and slowly but not soakingly, dab the back of the sketch until the paper has absorbed a lot of water,especially in non painted areas. These areas are not covered and stuck on paint, so you will be able to pry them away easily, the other paint stuck areas you will have to go very slowly with balancing how much pressure you use to pull away the sketch and paying close attention to the adhension of the paint. You do not, I repeat, you do not want to lose paint in the process. If at best you cannot take all the stuck on paper off, you will be at least take off the clear part of the acetate from view. You may end up with stuck on paper on the painted areas, but those should not be viewable anyway from the front side. If you simply rip the paper away, 90% chance that you'll lose paint.
The best thing to do if you are up to this is to practice! Get some dime store cels that are stuck or get some acetate, paper, and paint and deliberately do it yourself.. this way you can get a feel for it.

In any case, don't tell anyone that I told you this dumb stuff =)

Oh, btw I forgot to add that if this is a really expensive cel, I would not do this without going to a professional, since you risk destroying your cel. If you have a few hundred bucks to spare then you may want to consider this place:

http://www.srlabs.com/

This is a company that specializes in cel rstoration.

thank you! that's very informative.

Some good points E. I didn't know of a Cel Restorer that advertises online, cool.
The thing with separating cels from sketches is that if it looks risky, leave it alone. No matter how much you may want to separate layers/remove the cel from it's sketch to display it against a background, damaging a cel will make you feel sick and you will only loose- there's no going back.
I tried it with a cheap cel before and little paint flecks came away which annoyed me greatly. I wouldn't risk this with a cel I really cared about.
The best thing to remember is that if you're buying a cel always check if it's stuck to any production material. If it's unstuck, keep it that way by following E's advice from the other threads on this board.