Go2Guy

My life story. . . . ha ha ha. . . I tell all my customers a 2-3 hour block and all times are estimates, and subject to change since i mobile .

definitiley the tinter unfortunately , 3 things could of happened 1] he had the right blade [ss] but was dull which would be a mistake , 2] he had the right blade and was sharp the way its supposed to be BUT, your glass is soft [which if thats the case it is technically his fault BUT, in A away not his fault because there is no way to know of the glass was soft prior to cutting on it, OR the worst of all he used a carbon steel which cuts the glass no matter what at which point he is 100 percent to blame, I guess the real question is it worth the hassle about a line that you didnt even know was there and  will forget about next week and likely never see it again unless your purposely staring at it , I know its not the best response but its true, almost every car in the world is full of minor dents and scratches including all over the windows BUT you dont notice them unless your really trying to. .  same case in this matter, 
 

definitiley the tinter unfortunately , 3 things could of happened 1] he had the right blade [ss] but was dull which would be a mistake , 2] he had the right blade and was sharp the way its supposed to be BUT, your glass is soft [which if thats the case it is technically his fault BUT, in A away not his fault because there is no way to know of the glass was soft prior to cutting on it, OR the worst of all he used a carbon steel which cuts the glass no matter what at which point he is 100 percent to blame, I guess the real question is it worth the hassle about a line that you didnt even know was there and  will forget about next week and likely never see it again unless your purposely staring at it , I know its not the best response but its true, almost every car in the world is full of minor dents and scratches including all over the windows BUT you dont notice them unless your really trying to. .  same case in this matter, 
 

definitiley the tinter unfortunately , 3 things could of happened 1] he had the right blade [ss] but was dull which would be a mistake , 2] he had the right blade and was sharp the way its supposed to be BUT, your glass is soft [which if thats the case it is technically his fault BUT, in A away not his fault because there is no way to know of the glass was soft prior to cutting on it, OR the worst of all he used a carbon steel which cuts the glass no matter what at which point he is 100 percent to blame, I guess the real question is it worth the hassle about a line that you didnt even know was there and  will forget about next week and likely never see it again unless your purposely staring at it , I know its not the best response but its true, almost every car in the world is full of minor dents and scratches including all over the windows BUT you dont notice them unless your really trying to. .  same case in this matter, 
 

I agree Ryker for all the films that i have and for auto,   But when it comes to flat Glass especially big flat glass jobs, customers want to see documentation, Not only that but global has 31 different types of arch film none of them which ive ever seen besides silver 35,  I've never complained in the last 5 years of using global but now that I'm doing flat glass its starting to mean something to me. Im going to put this on the Fb boards to see if you get more responses.
 

Hi TTS,
 
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to explain.
 
The Similarities:
Both of these products incorporate the nano particles within the laminating adhesive.  Both ATO and TiN are readily available on the commercial market in liquid suspension.  Neither company can make any claims as to the uniqueness of this component.  It is neither proprietary or exclusive. 
 
The Difference (and it's a big one):
Is the base film.  The Global QDPC is based on the tried and true QDP dip dyed base film.  Deep dyed (liquid bath) represents the absolute gold standard in color stability.  Let's put Global aside for a moment.  Does Llumar (the king) use deep dyed base film for their top of the line products, or the method used in the Flex?  When considering the best performing and most color stable products sold in the USA, what method is used to dye the base film?  You guessed it.  Deep dip (bath) dye.
 
Let's just put Flex aside for a moment, because it would not be right or fair to single out Ralph or Flex:
 
Many people do not understand why the imported films just don't have the same level of color stability you would have in a film such as Llumar or Global.  Is it because the foreign manufacturers are trying to pinch pennies?  No.  Is it because they don't have talented technical departments?  No.  The reason is much more simple.  They can't get their hands on the deep dip dyed base film.  So they resort to every other technique possible to get the color into the film.  Coating, dyed chips and other methods.
 
As Ralph mentioned, the source company is a very large and prominent producer of PET films.  I have to admit, when I visited their facilities, I was extremely impressed with the size and scope of their laminating operation.  They probably have more coating lines operating in one place than any other company in the world.  I seem to remember losing count after the first twenty-five or so machines.  I have never seen anything like it either before or after and believe me, I have been to a factory or two.
 
But.....   Finished window film is but a very, very small part of that company.  And they are far from a "powerhouse" when it comes to world wide market share.  As much as I liked both the people and the facilities I saw when I was there, I did not think they had the kind of product that would hit home runs for EWF in the USA. 
 
I have no desire to disparage that product.  I can say a great deal of positive things about it.  The color dye technology used is far superior to the coating and dye chip technologies that are the hallmark of films from that area of the world.  But believe me, if that method were the best method - the USA majors would be using it - and they are certainly not.
 
-Howard

2018 Galeon 550 3M crystalline applied to all salon windows 

wow, i thought he had a lot of tool. . .smh
 

thanks every one for the great responses. .  I know what im lookin for may seem impossible but then again its always out there some where, if you look hard enough,  @naplestint i just checked out wincos 70 website and it seems like a great film, im going to give them a call tommorow and get some prices on it, there specs are very impressive especially on the ir sidehanks

No one will get in trouble! 
The difference in reading between green and white LED's is very small, within the margin of error. Thats why meters are spec'ed at +_2%.  Remember also that White LED's are made using blue and yellow orange led chips(depends on LED. Think of the LED bulbs for your house, warm white, cool white etc. with all sorts of varying spectral outputs. The green color of the LED, when chosen properly, is 550nm and is a physical constant of the material used to make the LED)The reason for green goes why back to the 80's when it was in some states laws. It allows you to contest the meter reading in court and use any readily available spectrophotometer to take a comparison measurement(labs, university etc all have lots of them.) Years ago early meters used an incandescent bulb(actually a tail light bulb) as the source. Trouble with bulbs is they produce light by heating a filament to glow white and produce tremendous amounts of infrared light(which you can't see) and a small amount of UV.   Even with filters there still is significant IR and some UV(which is invisible) which then would be blocked by the car window/tint film giving a lower reading. Wouldn't be fair to ticket someone for light you can't even see. 550 is the middle of the human eye sensitivity and is the measurement that the optics industry has used for years. The heat absorbers used in car windows do give it a slight green cast but again it just cause a slight high reading compared to white, once again within the +_2%.  The bigger issue we have found is the spot to spot variability in both auto glass and even worse some tint film. Glass makers goal is to keep spot to spot variation under 3%(the threshold of human perception) for the most part they do a very good job, sadly that can't be said for some film manufacturers. I have seen film with greater than 8% spot to spot variation within 12" on the same piece of film. Doesn't make your job any easier when you buy poor quality film.
As for using the one piece Enforcer II to measure film, thats tough to do. if you look at the this GIF    you can see the on/off switch at the bottom of the slot. You need to hold the film tightly between your two hands and with your third hand slide the film in to depress the switch and keep it depressed till you break the beam. Doable but tough. Other wise it will calibrate with the film inplace and read 100 or if the film is dark the meter will know something is screwed up and throw an E1 error reading.
Sorry for the long kind of technical post. Hope I helped some.
 
PS CEO sounds great but there are only 12 of us, but, we have made half a million of these things in 29 years, so theres that!
Ed
 

Crystalline sucks.
cheers

The art contained in the thread thus far appears to be plotter cut, weeded and transferred to glass using transfer tape. There is talent in achieving the end result similar to what it takes to lay vinyl.
 
Back in the early to mid-80's the shop I owned in Cocoa FL began doing graphic art in window film on cars. We eventually graduated to doing window film pictures on flat glass to hang in a frame, which eventually led to store front work. Solar Graphics in St Pete area was doing this type work, too. Unlike Richard, our team mainly remained relatively unknown and did not pursue larger deals such as those done by Solar Graphics since that time.
 
We bought surplus overhead projectors to enlarge line drawings via liner material, sharpie marker and tracing the right sized projected image onto a large piece of liner hung to a white wall. These final 'templates' were then taped to the glass opposite the surface film would be applied to. A sampling of a liner/sharpie trace is below (I still have a book full of liner images). The trick is cutting the applied film in the right way to leave behind the image from the trace template. You can layer over and over to get darker coloring or shading effects.
 
The other picture attached depicts a large glass that would eventually be placed in the building opening above my head. But first, a seal layer of silver film would be installed over the entire surface sealing in the image and to accentuate the image. This large example was all hand cut because plotters cutting window film was unheard of in those days. The year was 1990 when I first arrived in Naples FL. When in Cocoa the team I had was myself, Louise, Donna and Lee. All of us have artist in our blood.

Weed.
 

 
 
 
 
Just kidding!

I know this post is old but im actually looking to make a waiver for all my customers and was wondering if you can upload a sample of your waiver that you use

Keep in mind, higher the technology, typically it is harder to install and price will be higher because of that technology...especially when you want the higher performance without the hazing.  The key is to make sure you are charging enough money...as your film choices go higher, so should your profit.  For example, we have Llumar CTX for our Ceramic and 3M Crystalline for our higher performing film.  Even though Crystalline is well over two times the price of CTX, we make way more profit on Crystalline than CTX.  Basically you wanting a low price, high performance, and easy installation is like our customers walking in wanting dark, but legal.  You have to pick and choose which is the priority to you.
 
With that being said, SolarFX IRFX is a great option to get you IR performance while keeping the price super low.  Want even more performance, then SolarFX FXtreme2/RejectorFX will work.

you sound like one of my customers . . . lol, and the response i give them is : Tint is designed to be seen thru if you coulndt see thru it then you would not be able to see out   . . . . simple as that . . . . if you dont want any one seeing in you might as spray paint your windows black or  install black out film or put some type of curtain over the windows. .  . the technical answer would be its all about the angles your looking thru it, clouds, reflection , sun angle, interior color, vlt of your factory glass, reflectivity of the film,   . Even limo 5 you can see thru in the right conditions, . . . Heck, I have double 15 on the back quarter panel window of my suv which should be about 1 or 2 percent and if my windows or down and im looking from the outside quarter panel window thru the open window you can still see thru in it , in short no film is 100 percent non see thru in 100 percent of conditions, except black out film, which is truly pitch black and the equivalent of you painting  your windows black. . . . 
 
Now for the morality of it. . . .I personally had 5 percent tint one of my cars when i was 18 [im 31 now] . I had just installed it and no more than a week later  i was at a gas station on the beach at night time and there was a crowd of people there and i was making a u turn in the parking lot AND COULD NOT SEE HIM AT ALL i almost rand a guy over. . ..  ..  if it wasnt for him pounding on my car i would of hit him. . .
story number 2: I also used to have 30 percent on the windshield one of my cars also when i was about 18 and at night if it was raining, I LITTERLY COULD NOT DISTINGUISH THE ROAD FROM THE GRASS, AND SWERVED OFF ROAD SEVERAL TIMEs. . .  
WHAT YOUR DOING IS DANGEROUS AND LIKELY TO GET SOMEONE KILLED, 
Do you really want that on your shoulders. . .
 
I know your gonna say you can see thru it just fine, but that is not true in all conditions, especially if its dark out and its raining . .  .  
 
for your answer, as for as im aware tell tint does not do "weird things" when layered. . . vlt is vlt.  . .minus it being twice as likely to fail since one layer is attached to another.
now for a solution that might actually help you achive your goal with out you killing someone. . .and being easily removable in low light conditions 
https://www.amazon.com/ShadeSox-Universal-Window-Protects-Included/dp/B00YI3IGA6/ref=sr_1_6?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1516061958&sr=1-6&keywords=window+shade
 

 
 
i currently have these for my car on the fronts, my suv has double 15 in the back quarter panel, 15 on the rear windows, and 40 percent on the front 2 and when i put these on the front 2 it makes them match the rear 15 percent nearly perfect,  if you were to put them on yours is would likley make it look like 1 or 2 percent which is extremely dark, but again you need to be careful and i would only recommend you using them when parked. . 

Thank you so much for your response.  I   am a technical person by Nature and always have technical questions and you always give great technical answers I really appreciate it.
I don't live in the best area hence my interest and putting security film on my own house but before I drop 300-400  plus dollars on the roll to do it I was wondering if it's actually worth it we've all seen some great vids on testing out these films  but like all things most people leave out the fine print. .  I must admit though llumar was the most Fair in showing the different ratings of their film on different types of glass and the others did not do this they only use single and dual-plane quarter inch tempered which is crazy Strong by itself . . .I love to chat with you in person one day smarty to shoes , I have other technical questions that I've posted on this forum before that have not really been answered  to the technical degree that my mind loves . One of those questions is actually lays out a principal for an invention that has yet to be made, and would revolutionize The Tint industry.  of all people you would probably have the answer to it and or know the way to accomplish it

Being a glass guy with years under the belt, you understand there are many variables in any glass standing up to forces brought to their surface. Whether it a thrown rock, a person falling against it or a madman with a forked garbage truck driving into it, they all have their weaknesses. So do safety film products. Both film and glass are tested to certain standards before said claims can be made and like anything done in a laboratory setting, you will not see the exact same behavior in real life events. Best approach is to CYA and not make claims beyond what the maker makes.
 
I was a party to in-house testing of LLumar's safety films in the early 2000's before sending filmed glass to independent test labs. We witnessed all kinds of breakage with filmed glass using different thicknesses of product. The bag swung at the glass/film test panel was 100lb of buckshot-like beads. This was to mimic a human head crashing into the glass that has film applied to its surface opposite the impact side. Some would resist break through, others not so much. Some panels stayed in the frame, others did not. The thickest films literally popped free of the glass, showing there is a threshold passed by which the film can be too rigid. These tests were performed with both tempered and annealed.
 
In LLumar's chart you will see the best use of their films listed and the lab test they have passed. This does not mean it will be as found in the test in every case because of variables. For blast mitigation, it is a whole new set of rules and variables to gauge a successful passing.
 
And in some cases, there are embedded in a report an additional mitigation product used to obtain a pass score. One of which is LLumar passing a Dade County protocol by using a certain thickness of plywood in front of the glass (thought to be a real life scenario of boarding up before the hurricane hits).
 
 
 

Im qualified but I'm not showing up on time that's for sure. 

IF it wasn't for 2 people and one event  I probably wouldn't have had the courage to do it
. . .
1] Is is a Friend and  long time Tinter that i met, When I met him he assured me there is no shortage of cars to be tinted,   he also started to send me some work and told me if ever got 2 slow all I had to do is give him a call and he would send me some work. THIS WAS VERY REASSURING ,  I have yet to call him for being "slow" but the reassurance is comforting
2] My momma who told me to jump off the cliff and learn how to fly on the way down. . . . she said if you never jump you will never learn!!!!
3]while debating jumping off the cliff one day i made like 600 in one day and this was a wake up smack in the face, I made 2 weeks of work in ONE DAY that was the straw that broke the camel's back!!!!!  what i did was I went to part time at my old job for 2 months to see if could do it[10 hour days 2 days a week 4 days tinting ] after that i quit for good and have never looked 
 
Between all this IT IS STUPID NOT TO DO IT . 

LIKE NIKE SAID JUST DO IT. . . . Yes im very slow in clientele as most guys are knocking out 4-6 cars a day and im doing 2-6 a week!  but I DON'T CARE.. . . . Im not trying to be rich and im not trying to work 40 plus hours a week,  so my advice to you is to find out how many cars a week you need to to make a living. . . .and set that as your goal
 
one other thing to note: 1 week i could make 150 the next week i could make 1200, So what i do is i pretend i live on my old pay checks and if i make 1200 for a week I know i made what i need for the month . its probably not the best way to run a business but im learning the business side of things as i go. . . DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I can not belive you didnt mention Flat Rock Stan in the poll. . .  SMH

Is that you Jim?  I live in Fort Myers also and got to work with bud of mine named Jim, and he is the fastest Tinter I THINK IVE EVER SEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No double cutting either ,  From my own eyes Ive seen him. He slaps the film on the car cuts it , installs in what looks like 5 minutes per window . He does all of this even if the wind is blowing and the customer is talking !!!!!!!!!!!!!! It blows my mind! Me on the other hand is about 2 hours with no talking , no mess ups and no wind, If any of those happen then then im sittin at least 3 hours plus

IF it wasn't for 2 people and one event  I probably wouldn't have had the courage to do it
. . .
1] Is is a Friend and  long time Tinter that i met, When I met him he assured me there is no shortage of cars to be tinted,   he also started to send me some work and told me if ever got 2 slow all I had to do is give him a call and he would send me some work. THIS WAS VERY REASSURING ,  I have yet to call him for being "slow" but the reassurance is comforting
2] My momma who told me to jump off the cliff and learn how to fly on the way down. . . . she said if you never jump you will never learn!!!!
3]while debating jumping off the cliff one day i made like 600 in one day and this was a wake up smack in the face, I made 2 weeks of work in ONE DAY that was the straw that broke the camel's back!!!!!  what i did was I went to part time at my old job for 2 months to see if could do it[10 hour days 2 days a week 4 days tinting ] after that i quit for good and have never looked 
 
Between all this IT IS STUPID NOT TO DO IT . 

LIKE NIKE SAID JUST DO IT. . . . Yes im very slow in clientele as most guys are knocking out 4-6 cars a day and im doing 2-6 a week!  but I DON'T CARE.. . . . Im not trying to be rich and im not trying to work 40 plus hours a week,  so my advice to you is to find out how many cars a week you need to to make a living. . . .and set that as your goal
 
one other thing to note: 1 week i could make 150 the next week i could make 1200, So what i do is i pretend i live on my old pay checks and if i make 1200 for a week I know i made what i need for the month . its probably not the best way to run a business but im learning the business side of things as i go. . . DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

IF it wasn't for 2 people and one event  I probably wouldn't have had the courage to do it
. . .
1] Is is a Friend and  long time Tinter that i met, When I met him he assured me there is no shortage of cars to be tinted,   he also started to send me some work and told me if ever got 2 slow all I had to do is give him a call and he would send me some work. THIS WAS VERY REASSURING ,  I have yet to call him for being "slow" but the reassurance is comforting
2] My momma who told me to jump off the cliff and learn how to fly on the way down. . . . she said if you never jump you will never learn!!!!
3]while debating jumping off the cliff one day i made like 600 in one day and this was a wake up smack in the face, I made 2 weeks of work in ONE DAY that was the straw that broke the camel's back!!!!!  what i did was I went to part time at my old job for 2 months to see if could do it[10 hour days 2 days a week 4 days tinting ] after that i quit for good and have never looked 
 
Between all this IT IS STUPID NOT TO DO IT . 

LIKE NIKE SAID JUST DO IT. . . . Yes im very slow in clientele as most guys are knocking out 4-6 cars a day and im doing 2-6 a week!  but I DON'T CARE.. . . . Im not trying to be rich and im not trying to work 40 plus hours a week,  so my advice to you is to find out how many cars a week you need to to make a living. . . .and set that as your goal
 
one other thing to note: 1 week i could make 150 the next week i could make 1200, So what i do is i pretend i live on my old pay checks and if i make 1200 for a week I know i made what i need for the month . its probably not the best way to run a business but im learning the business side of things as i go. . . DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!