Reverse Roll Residential

jh812 · June 7, 2014

I have a sliding glass door to tint tomorrow and was wondering if anyone could give me the rundown on reverse rolling. My wife has always just help me pull the liner, spray, and stick. I assume that some you guys don't always have the extra hand there. I tried reverse roll once before and pretty sure it had enough contamination in it for 1000 windows. Any help or demos of this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Thirtyfive · June 7, 2014

You run your own tinting biz and can't teverse roll flat glass???

Jesus you guys up north pop my eyes out of my sockets sometimes....

To help you out, roll up the film tightly and have te liner facing inwards not outward when you peel.

Spray the liner side with your mix, peel it with your teeth and pull the liner off gently without touching the film adhesive side, (I use my teeth to hold the film while I pull the liner across off the film.)

Wrap the liner around the tightly rolled piece of film and make it stick with the mix you sprayed it with.

Personally I overlap both sides and tack the top edge down. I used to line up the top edge and one side but you can rarely get it perfect one go and usually involves moving the film a bit which can suck up dirt.

Start rolling down te film, keeping it tight. If you think it's a bit dry you can spray the glass a bit, if you touch the glass or something you can squeegee it again and spray again.

Sometimes it ain't a bad idea to flush while your rolling if your mix isn't too slippery as well....

When you've done this, look up the drop technique.....

I gotta dlsay though, I most DEFINITELY am not a perfect tinter.....

But before I started my own business and went completely solo, I could tint......

I seem to see these questions alot,

If you need training or something, in all honesty coming from the nicest place possible, go and get it. I only say because if your a tinter who can't tint on his own u need it.....

jh812 · June 7, 2014

I'm mostly auto but have done some houses. Like I said though I've always had the convenience of having my wife with me to give me a hand. Also this is just a side business for now but i'm hoping to make it full time in the near future (probably another year). I think we could all use more training in some aspect but this I think is just a case of needing practice. Which with that size film its hard to get away from doing one method that has been working to chance it on another. Thanks for the input hopefully I can give it another go tomorrow.

H.G. · June 7, 2014

If this is your first attempt at backrolling , you might be better off making tape tabs to hold the film with the liner facing out

Then you can peel it by yourself. You will be making a T with the tape , with the top of the T being the largest . 6" top and 2" bottom. The top piece will hold the smaller one (sticky out on the small piece) One T on each side of the film. Just pull the liner at an angle to start and pull steady,you don't want to pull your tabs off. If you have plenty of film to work with use duct tape cause you will be cutting the sides anyways.

If you are doing 2 doors clean them both , squeege them and then use the opposite door for a "peel board" .

Doing a backroll for the first time might not be a good idea , unless you have some film to scrap ,but 35 gave a good description albeit from a professional one.

When you have your film rolled as described , pull the film with liner down about 1' and lightly mist it ,this will hold the liner to the film as you work with it. roll it back up to about 2" and start removing the liner from the corner . From there you can get your finger between the liner and the film and slide your finger across. You will have about a 2" of exposed film . I always pull about a foot and spray that down , that way you don't have to spray any where near the top edge of your work .Grab one side of the film and carefully get ahold of the other then "snap" Some films you can snap with a downward motion and have them unroll to the ground ,some will drop maybe a foot or two which is ok also cause you can tack the top edge and then unroll the rest then squeege. Hope that makes sense, Iv'e had a long day. Good Luck :thumb

ultratintsouthport · June 7, 2014

Good on you for speaking up and wanting to learn a new technique. I see so many tinters out there who only know one technique and use it every time win or lose. It doesn't make for a very versatile installer. The more techniques you can master, the more potential problems you can overcome.

addicted to tint · June 7, 2014

Years ago it was common to be a good auto tinter and not know basics such as reverse rolling. Unless someone you were associated with in the biz, manufacturers sales rep or another installer showed you, you did the best you could do with help from others, like your wife. There were no you tube videos, few training opportunities, definitely no training CD's available.

I think now there's no excuse, especially if you live in NC. You can't be further than 3-4 hours, probably a lot closer, from multiple suppliers that offer affordable training classes that last 1-2 days and would teach you a lot.

Thirtyfive · June 7, 2014

Fair enough, I forgot you were doing this part time and learning..

In that case hope I actually helped Aland good luck

jh812 · June 7, 2014

Reverse Rolled these today. Not a problem. I still required a little assistance but I think with some more practice shouldn't be a problem. Thanks for the help guys.