Sunbreakers

Wow, one of the posters mentioned a lot of names I haven't heard in a long time...Wendell Cobleigh was the first person I bought film from when I was learning on my on. Calvin Hill was Llumar distributor in the Atlanta during the 90's. I met Bill once at an event. He truly helped establish our industry as a serious profession. Most at that time laughed and thought we were simply a bunch of dead beats wasting time...some of us were LOL!! 

RIP Mr. Burke and thank you for your dedication to window film. 

If you want one who is experienced, does good work, and dependable he already has a job. You have to train them to have them and even then..... Good luck with your search. If you find more than one send him south. LOL!!

Hmmmmm It seems that would be a port error. The LPT refers to the printer port on your machine. I would first check to make sure it is plugged in securely to both the computer and the plotter. After that if all is good then make sure you have the correct plotter selected under the machines list. 

@pbalentine Yessir....happy to help you any way I can. This method works for all the new Lexus and FCA products...charger, challenger, etc... as well as most new GM. Another tip.... Make sure you check the tightness of the clip when you snap them back in. Sometimes they get loose and the door panel merely "sits" on the clip without really being anchored. I pull it back and take a hook tool or a snap on radiator hose tool and spread the clip apart a bit. Snap it back on and you are good to go..

I think everything I have crawled in the back seat of that has either an "A" or "S" in their model works the same way. May even be the same brake light for most of them. 

Also, the video you posted the guy is wet shrinking...you may have a harder time trying to shrink doing it that way than other methods. There are many other comments I have, but I will simply add that there are many techniques that I think could be a bit easier and possibly more forgiving for you than what you are seeing there. Obviously his approach works and that is all that matters at the end of the day. Hope this helps. 

@JOHNNYBTINT is correct when he says solar gard is not really sticky at all. This is an old school rear glass and it must be done "old school." In the old days before we shrank that much it was all about tension. @no ma'am makes reference to it when he says to pull across the bottom. What I do is tack in the middle a place a bit larger than my fist. I soap shrink so I put a little too much soap on the window and while it is still sticky I attempt this. Pull all of your fingers and slack around the bottom and towards the top. You should have nothing....not one finger....to shrink around the bottom and sides. On the top you have maybe 5 seconds of shrinking. There are a few windows I have done where at the very bottom on the passenger side it will not stay laid down on the glass. If that is the case then you will need to do a bit of shrinking at the bottom in that area. Very unusual but it can happen. When you get all that done I then cut one side of the defroster elements and you can either cut the other one  or wait till you put on the inside and hand cut it to fit. Usually I cut both on the outside and then adjust the one that will not fit on the inside. It gives me alignment and I don't have to worry about gaps. Another thing you can do is all along the border and the matrix at the top you can sand with 1000 grit wet sandpaper. Wipe the gray residue off with a towel before you clean or squeegee. Do NOT sand the bare glass. This will help you get adhesion when you put it on the inside. 

You can do it with a bit of practice. This is not a window meant for the beginner level. However even our Llumar Pro Select shop here avoids them and will not do them they struggle so bad with them. Good luck buddy...hope you pull it off. 

No, not at all. You didn't make me feel uncomfortable in the least. It was great to understand and remember that cool part of our past. I appreciate you have such a great memory of it all. I simply felt it important to apologize to you. Glad we are friends and can share the blessings we have today. 

Thanks, @Tint Slayer for your kind words. I feel it is always important to have humility so we can be better folks. Those who think they are any sort of "God" to me means they are stagnant and will never learn to improve with new techniques and approaches.  I appreciate this place where we all can share our mistakes and successes and have others learn from them. 

My little suburb was quiet and boring place. Two guys came in from FL. with flashy cars and opened a tint shop down the street from my parents. Always had cool cars there and working on them. I started hanging out with them. Later they gave me a job. After about a month or so they told me "you may be good at many things, but you will never make it as a window tinter." I left and started buying film through a friend of mine's dad's business doing cars anywhere I could. 3 years later I bought the shop of the guy who sent me away. Two years later I opened two more stores in FL. Parents convinced me that tint was not where it was at....although I was making good money by then so I sold my shops and went back to school still tinting with one employee. Graduated with a master's degree and tried to give up tinting for good, but the phone never stopped ringing. Now I have been at it ever since. This February will be 32 years. Glad I never gave up.  

You can always snap them on your peel board. One thing that helps fingering  is bumping the edges with a paper towel. They never drain the slip solution well. 

I would be careful about taking everything Ralph does and says to heart...He is what my grandmother would have called a "snake oil salesman." You would do much better if you stick to all of the fine folks here on this site. As a collective we have the experience and knowledge to help you, and we don't have to make a snappy video to do it. 

22 hours ago, Zachtooth said:

These brake lights suck.  I've even had audi techs say they break them a lot.  Why do you do this audi?!?!

Because they put them ON. They never take them off. The key is wiggling them at the beginning as you slide towards the back. If you grab a tool to pull them down to grab onto them, chances are it breaks. They suck for sure. 

7 hours ago, andrewab said:

You really think the ATR looked better?  Now you got me thinking

Make sure you look at samples and check real world percentages...the ATR is always a bit lighter than stated. 20=26, 35=38, etc..

I used to ONLY carry the ATR line and nothing else. Had the rep admit that there was very little efficiency difference between the two(ATR & CTX). The only thing to keep in mind is ATR is a hybrid metalized film and therefore can and will at times interfere with electronics such as key fobs/keyless entry etc..Doesn't always happen and two of the same model cars may have different results but I have had it happen. I stopped carrying it and only now have ATC and CTX as the ATR didn't really have a fit in the lineup and also, as much as I love Llumar, in the past 8 years the only warranty claims I have had for any sort of issue has been with the ATR. Again, as others have stated, the two are very close. The new CTX 25 is beautiful and extremely poplular. It is basically the ATR  20 in ceramic form. 

Hope this helps. 

9 hours ago, DynamicATL said:

I would be interested in the theory of why people wouldn't care as much in the NE.  Only thing I can think of is cheap quality films last longer up there due to the climate.  Plus every NY person that I have dealt with passing through GA asking about tint was cheap AF.  They always talk about how much cheaper their boy does it up there.  I'm like yeah, that is why your car is deadass purple now.

@DynamicATL, those are the folks I call "Walmart shoppers." They get the $100 tint jobs and the $400 paint jobs. Another shop in our same area is undercutting us by at least $100 per job. Ends up he is tinting a Lexus IS 250 for a little more than we get for two door windows. Folks come in and I try to explain about brand and quality along with warranty. I am told by these customers that film quality doesn't matter...they get a lifetime warranty so brand is irrelevant, although I have seen them deny warranties. Some people you just can't convince it seems. 

6 hours ago, lorenzotint said:

that a fact 20 years ago. today 3/100 [3%] or less in northeast and much higher in lower 50 states

I find it surprising that Llumar would have so little brand recognition in the northeast. It seems they have really done a great job in the last 5 years. Almost everyone recognizes the name it seems. 

@Tint Slayer to be fair I have looked up a few cars here and there but never tried it. I looked into it and felt like I was buying a new car.. the price they tell you about is ok, then they start "adding" to it. If you are a dealer or not, if you want ppf or not. Per cut basis or monthly....seems pretty pricey when it is all said and done and the guy really wanted me to pick up their ppf. If I did a lot more of that then I could see how it would be an obvious transition, but we just don´t have enough business to justify xpel for ppf.

I hear you. First car I did it in was a 1990 BMW 535. That stuff sucked to work with. Still have a roll of it I bought in like 2000 or thereabouts. 

On 12/4/2018 at 1:24 PM, jsylva said:

Take this for what it is. We have a US Cutter 50" Laserpoint II plotter that brand new costs maybe $800. When going from hand cutting to plotting i already owned this plotter for vinyl sign purposes as a side gig. So far it has been cutting out about 60 cars a month (give or take)  for over a year. Is it as awesome as a Roland or GCC, probably not. I will say that even though the cost of the machine was cheap, it has done a fantastic job cutting tint. Being that it is a budget plotter, it has some quirks every now and then but im ok with that. For as cheap as it was new and the amount of use i have gotten out of it i have no problem recommending this plotter to people looking to make that jump without wanting to spend thousands. Buy some roland blades, replace the cutting strip every so often, and play with the speed and pressure settings and it will cut everything you want. Hope this was somewhat helpful. 

@jsylvaInteresting to see that you got a budget machine to work out with tint...I respect that. I notice on US Cutter website they have the LP III now. Would you recommend a seasoned veteran try one of those? I need to put plotters in at least two dealerships and would love to save $3k on each. Do you cut ppf with it ever?

Oh and software all has it's good and bad points. Film design is always oversized on windshields and sometimes rear windows but better than Tinttek. Precision Cut from Llumar is better sometimes than Film Design but only for dealers and the folks you deal with are often bothered and rude. You complain and they are nice to you once...then back to the same old game. 

@quality tintz in the past I have always recommended signwarehouse dot com and they have done well. The best deal you can find for mainstream printer is a vinyl express Q series...usually a Q42 or Q64. They are a generic Graphtec and usually cheaper. However, one of the other guys here tried to buy one last month or so and they had gone way up and were really not an advantage price wise over the graphtec fc8600. The girl I have always used cited the China tariffs as the reason they had gone up but Graphtec is a Japanese company so go figure. I tried the cheaper stepper stepper motor plotters made in china that some folks had recommended and it was a nightmare...didn't work, force was uneven, cuts were horrible and blades went dull like every day or week. My Vinyl express I bought three years ago I am still using original blade..not sure how as it has cut a ton of film. 

Hope some of this helps. 

Platinum plus went the way of the passenger pigeon and died many years ago.