DIY Tint Thread

[dude]

I have and do all my own work,from body to paint,mechanical to interior,mini tubs and cages,always aiming for highest quality of work,I am a big believer in giving things a go yourself. I am also a window tinter with over 10 years experience, now while it is possible to tint your car with these kits i can guarantee you that for $35 the film you get will probably not be USA made, and probably not last long.
Over the years i have taught many people how to tint and to be honest it is not the type of job that someone can produce a professional result with a few windows practice. Mastering the use of the squegee and knives is only half the battle, making an accurate template or cutting the film on the car,especially older cars without the black border on the edge is also a learned skill.
With tint you only have one shot at any window, if you crease it, which is easy to do when you do any heat shrinking on curved glass, especially rear windows,you cannot fix the crease,sometimes you can get the air out with heat but its always there, and then there is dirt to contend with. Old cars with rubbers on the rear screen hold lots of dirt and if you dont clean and squeegee properly you will draw in dirt which you cant wash out,most of the time. you must clean everything,no dirt, no lint, nothing on the glass at all.Tinting is a bit like painting,everything must be super clean, .

If you insist on giving it a go, 1 use lots of soapy water, yes lots 2 wipe all top edges with a cotton rag. remember that gravity is your enemy, water running down the window will usually mean dirt running down the glass as well. 3 keep the squeegee and film wet. 4 .squeegee hard .

good luck!!!!

[mattysshop]

what sort of tint did you get, dyed or metalised? for $35 it sounds very cheap, i would only ever use the metalised stuff..

a kind of mate of mine has done 4 cars for me and i've given him a hand on the last 2.. it's not really that hard..

you'll need

a wind free invironment like a double garage enough to open both doors easily..
a green scotch brite pad
stainless steel cartridge razor blades (a few)
squirty bottle with some morning fresh/water in it
squeegee
very fine meatal nail file
heat gun
talcom powder

squirt the glass inside AND outside with the soapy water,
scotchy the glass area,
then run over it with the razor blade scraper,
then squeegee

do that to all the side windows, the rear window ONLY scotchy over the inside of the glass, unless you don't want to keep your demister!

SIDE WINDOWS

step 2 - cut the tint to size..

squirt some fresh soapy water on the outside of the window..

place the tint onto the outside of the glass (it will stick with the soapy water there)

allow about an extra half inch, around the edges..

once cut to approx size, pull it off the glass, and peel the protective backing layer off the tint, and as quickly as possible spray the exposed sticky tint with the soapy water.. don't be scared, you cannot use too much of it.. it won't hurt your interior trims..

once you get it to sit right and down the bottom rubber about half an inch or so.. spray some more water on the fresh tint and sqeegee it in an outwards motion.. this might take a few goes to get the right idea.. but it's pretty easy..

once squeegee'd then trim the hanging over bits to size with the razor blade..

once trimmed to size with the blade, to get that extra neat finish use the fine metal file on the edge of the glass, in ONE DIRECTION ONLY file towards the ourside of the door, right round all the edges.. this is the finishing touch (you only do this on the top egde with framed windows in other cars) it helps reduce the chance of the tint peeling off when the windows get wound up,

repeat that for your sides..


REAR WINDOW

the rear window is a bit trickey.. but still easy..

clean the outside of the window as mentioned before..

cut one large peice of tint to cover the whole window

sprinkle some talcom powder onto the outside of the window, and just wipe a hand width line across the middle of the screen, place the tint over the rear window, and cut to size to make this easier.. put a light or lamp etc inside the car on the back seat, and allow about an inch or so (little less maybe) covering the black out on the glass..

CUT to size..

NOW use a heat gun to lightly melt a bit of a shape to the tinting.. not too much or you will wrinkle the F%%k out of it.. just enough to shape a bit of a curve for the glass in it..

pull it off.. shake off the talc (it's only on the protective backing anyway)

peel off, wet and stick inside the rear screen! squeegee!

your car is tinted!!

a little tip he told me with frameless windows..

leave the windows down a TINY bit, just so the top of the tinting isn't hard against the rubber seal at the top of the glass.. just so it doesn't dry with a line.. don't have to.. but it doesn't really hurt it to..

enjoy

[dude]

do not use GREEN SCOTCH BRITE, they will scratch glass, use white only or fine steel wool.
Tinting LOOKS easy but its more difficult actually doing it.......

[mattysshop]

maybe we were just using a dull piece... but yes it makes sense to use the softer one

don't use the red one lol.. thats great for preping primed/painted panels before giving them a paint

[TIMTAMS]

Def don't use scotch brite green pads as they do scratch, especially new cars which tend to have softer glass. You do have a half decent instructional on tinting here but as DUDE said it's an art to get it done cleanly and crease free, with 15 years experiance myself and the last 10 on prestigious cars it's really come down to preperation and cleanliness. Anyone can tint a window, only a few can do a very impressive job.

Graeme

[oldcorollas]

so.. it would be much easier to do with glass out of the car?
any recommendations for which tint to get to have a bash myself? nto looking for super dark, just something to make it harder to see into the back of the car..

[trd_st184]

Well I have found frameless windows much easier to do but you do do have to apply some force to get all the water out and with the glass out of the car I think you will find it will either break or be too hard to manage with.

Its worth a go either way i think oldcorollas, well done for giving it a go

[td42gq]

Hey oldcorollas,
In answer to your question, it is easier to template the window out of the car but harder to tint unless you have a rack. The problem is that the dust settles on top of the glass and as you ad the soapy water and clean and then reapply the water if the glass is laying flat the dust falling and the static put little bits of dirt all over the window and you will end up with small bits of rubbish underneath the tint.

If you have the windows out, cut your tint to size and then stand the windows up to apply the tint, Just have the problem then of not pushing the glass over when removing the water. As "dude" said you probably need a few practice windows just to get the idea before producing anything acceptable. (depends how fussy you are). I have had training at work to learn how to tint and have tinted a few cars but even I paid one of the guys at work to tint my car as he has way more experience and does a far better job then I can as you waste a large amount of tint when starting out.

But by all means give it a go, If the tint is only $35 then your not loosing much.

We use a tint called Carbon 35 and Carbon 20 at work, I like it as it is easy to use compared to others and shrinks well when doing curved glass/windows. We buy it at work costs around $600 a roll and does around 14-16 cars. As far as I'm aware it is considered a reasonable quality tint and comes with a lifetime warranty.

Aaron

[oldcorollas]

well, glass is out, and they appear flat enough to not need any shrinking.....
easy to make a rack and they are not the biggest windows in the car world..


so where is good place to buy tint to have a go? what is typical roll width (so i can see what length)?

[trd_st184]

well, glass is out, and they appear flat enough to not need any shrinking.....
easy to make a rack and they are not the biggest windows in the car world..


so where is good place to buy tint to have a go? what is typical roll width (so i can see what length)?

Nice to hear mate.
The stuff that I bought is still holding up fine which was sourced from this place:
They were really nice:
http://www.protinting.com.au/

You can buy it by the meter like I did.

There is a handy video on there too.

Practice makes perfect, make sure the window is really clean. Even after cleaning for ages I still must have got a bit of dust in there

[td42gq]

Usually will come in 20 inch or 60 inch wide depending on supplier and what you require, if none of the windows are taller than 20 inches than get the shorter stuff, it's easier to work with unless you have a table big enough to cut it on. As for Suppliers I order through a company called Autoprotect in Brisbane, but not sure if you can buy directly from them if you want a small piece as we order by the roll. Maybe best off going with trd_st184 and try protinting.com.au

Aaron

[trd_st184]

Anyone still working on some tint jobs?

I'm doing another job this weekend. I am still not sure whether I will do the back window this weekend. The piece of glass is huge on the back of the celica, not to mention it has a huge curve.

[TIMTAMS]

That's going to be fun unless your an experienced Tinter. If you need some hints and tips let me know

[oldcorollas]

i still haven't got any tint, but am thiking to do so in next few weeks or so.. need to see relative tintiness of each grade to decide what to get...

[TIMTAMS]

What were you looking for in the tint? How dark? What colour? Reflective or charcoal? Security or standard? I have plenty of sample books etc if people want to see them and can also supply film at trade price if need be