Blackwolftinting

My best advice as a window tinter with 24 years of experience: Stop. Put down the window tint and tools. Run for your life. DO NOT quit your day job. Sometimes I think about throwing everything in the garbage and getting a job flipping burgers or selling women’s shoes. It would be much less stressful.

Some automotive work from today.

My first go at one. The back window seems a lot less curved, so that’s good. But the front quarter window...lol. I swear there’s a VW engineer that used to be a tinter, and he just loves making our lives harder. Anywho, I got them installed using a gold EZ reach and a toothbrush. The ez reach got what I could get, and the toothbrush got the rest. I’m sure if it was a toothbrush with an angled head it would have made it easier. Soft bristles and used just like a squeegee.

I made this with a tripod stand from Home Depot. I added casters to the bottom. Two pieces of wood with foam on each side to sandwich the glass in the clamp. The glass is just a piece I had laying around. It’s not good for cutting, but I do all that on the 4x8 slider I have mounted to the wall. I only use this to peel the film opposite of the slider.

Another one I made with film removed from a vehicle.

I advertise them so customers know to stay away from the cheap $99 tint jobs.

Sometimes I really get into the groove and put on one glove.

Smart Card with felt. Bondo with felt. Both for dry shrinking. Regular white card if you’re wet shrinking. The outside release liner will normally get scratched during the heat shrinking process. If you’re getting scratches in the actual film, it’s likely that there’s dirt under the film before you begin heat molding. Make sure to clean the glass thoroughly before you apply the film for heat shrinking to avoid pulling any grit through the bottom side of the film.

Don’t do it. It’ll look like caacaa.

Wipe down the A pillars and entire dashboard thoroughly. Or remove them completely(A pillars). Prep, squeegee then wet again-feel with your hand to make sure you didn’t miss anything on the glass. Wet. Wipe the sides from top to bottom with a paper towel. Final squeegee, DO NOT HIT THE HEADLINER(if you do, start over). Spray sides from top to bottom to flush any contamination down. Light spray on windshield except top 3”-4” of windshield. I’m sure you already have the reverse roll technique down, so next step is install. Sometimes I stick the side and unravel across the glass, sometimes I unravel it all the way across the dash then start working the film on from bottom to top. Hope that was clear and helps a little.

Use a heat gun on them when you see them. Push top to the defrost line, bottom to the defrost line. They’ll usually stay down. If you have any that are a pain and won’t lay, you can put a really small score line running along the defroster line. Then heat, push both ends towards the scored line. I had this on a new 300C the other day. It happens from time to time and is super annoying.

You can only shrink a finger towards the factory straight edge. If you shrink it any other way the film will singe and it’ll never lay down.

Before dry shrinking was a thing, wet was the only way to go. And we would have to leave a lot of relief on the sides. Basically fingers that went horizontally along the edge. Then we would make relief cuts along the defroster lines which would allow the film to overlap itself, getting rid of the side fingers. You can try that method if you’re not able to shrink a back window 100%. But to answer your question, you CAN NOT shrink to any non-factory straight edge. It’ll buckle and never lay down.

Maybe vinyl lettering or car wrap usage? I’ve never seen them used for window tinting.