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karkess

Anyone here tinting?

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I was curious if anyone here is tinting automotive windows?  Living in a large urban area, there is a sign shop every mile and those damn Sign a rama shops with their big fancy vinyl printers!  Everywhere! 

 

So while I won't turn down a sign job, matter of fact I have one for next weekend, I am trending towards window tinting.  There are far fewer shops, and less quality shops.  I found an awesome tint supplier and about 2 grand later, I'm waiting for tools and tint.

 

I've actually got about 5 cars lined up starting in a couple weeks, and one person I just met, works for Collex collision and is willing to send me customers and have me tint cars for them, and possibly graphics as well.  Oh!  And I've found that most tinters are using Oracle transparent film to tint head lights and tail lights.

 

I'm just curious if anyone else is taking this route, and how you've done and what types of marketing you've done.  I've joined a tinters forum and the people there range from nice to nasty, seem like there are a few prima-donna's there.

 

Thanks

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I am not currently tinting windows.  In fact I started back in the mid 80's.  Self starter and self taught... did it as a side job for about 15 years.  I finally just got tired of crawling around in side peoples nasty vehicles.

 

I can't help you with any current info..... specially with using the cutter.  I was old school..... we hand cut everything right on the glass itself.  Would have killed for a machine cut work around back then.

 

I do wish you the best tho!

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I've tinted a few windows over the years too.. and I'm ol' school as well.

 

If I had one to do today I wouldn't use the plotter.

A plotter would add an un-necessary variable, in my opinion.

 

What can be better than custom cut, right on the glass?

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we do architectural tinting no vehicles, too many laws. and most of the newer vehicles are tinted as dark as they can be anyways.

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I'm going to start off hand cutting.  And then if justified, I'll have to upgrade my plotter and subscribe to software.  As for the laws.  Up in Michigan, our laws suck, but everyone ignores them and does what they want and for the most part the police leave you alone. 

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When I got my windows tinted, I went to a place that had "digitally cut" window tint. I didnt go there for that reason( I was referred) And It was before I got into vinyl. But I watched him do my windows. He manually cut everything. I think once you get a steady hand and ruin a lot of tint that you get faster and better doing it by hand. Theres really no reason to do it with a cutter. Its 4 cuts and you use the window as a guide. Once you figure that out youll cut just as good as a cutter. 

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^^^Actually if you're doing enough cars a day, not only can you cut an entire car in 2 minutes(most guys even if they double cut, will take at least 5 mins to cut out a window), but you're not going to have as much waste.

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I think the real issues with cutting tint on a cutter is in the cost of the templates

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I'm going to start off hand cutting.  And then if justified, I'll have to upgrade my plotter and subscribe to software.  As for the laws.  Up in Michigan, our laws suck, but everyone ignores them and does what they want and for the most part the police leave you alone. 

We had a local officer that window tinting seemed to be his main goal in life to write ya for - had my 81 black imperial tinted - sides were only 30 percent - back was more - he tried to get me and finally did after 4 months - he seen me behind him and he just pulled over till I passed with no where to go.  daughter had to remove hers last year from the car we got from my grandparents that had dr slips - so the are out there enforcing it in Michigan 

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I never get ticketed but whenever I get pulled over both my window go down before they get out of the patrol car. Lots of police don't feel comfortable approaching a car that they can't see into and that gesture has kept me out of trouble so far. My last actual car was so dark I had to roll the window down when pulling out of my yard at night to see if there were any cars coming and never got a ticket. Depends on the officer like Dakota said but showing respect can go a long way in avoiding tickets.

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I don't have any experience doing tint, but I work at a body shop and can add a little bit to that angle. We've started having a guy actually come to us to tint our cars recently so we don't have to pay someone to drive over there and wait until it's finished. If there are shops nearby and you could slip away to tint a car, that's a useful service. With body shops, 99.9% of the time it's just one or two windows that need tinting. Body shops vary though, some probably just give customers the tinters number and let them handle it.

 

We used to use a tint shop and the owner's daughter did signs in the same building and although she had a good plotter, they always cut tint by hand. It seemed like they could cut it by hand by the time you could load a roll, pull up the software and look up the right pattern. It seems like using a plotter to cut your wrapping paper for Christmas presents, but again, I don't have any first-hand experience.

 

Since you have the buddy at the body shop, you may want to think about offering pinstriping or pinstripe logos (like the photo below). From what I've seen of vehicles that come in that have been repaired before, a lot of body shops don't put much effort into stripes. I see cars with a logo on one side but not the other, stripes that don't match in color, or even size. We always duplicate them exactly, or in the odd case where we can't, we restripe the entire car to match. We started having a hard time getting the little logos. We used the sign girl at the tint shop for a long time but she moved to a different state, then the next sign shop went out of business, then 2-3 others said they couldn't cut anything that small, so we bought a Graphtec and now I have all the logos we've ever seen ready to cut at a moment's notice. I use it for a few things but those little logos, and the hassle of driving to a sign shop, are the sole reason we purchased it. If you had came around a year ago and offered mobile tinting and those dumb little logos, my boss would have put you on speeddial.

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^^^Great advice!  In Michigan we have awful tint laws, so I plan on capitalizing on them.  I'll tint your front windows, you pay me $40 at the time of purchase, I give you an insurance policy.  If you get ticketed, come in and I'll remove your tint.  Get your ticket signed off on and come back and I'll reinstall it.  I'm out a few minutes labor and $7 material, and most people will never use it and it's money in my pocket.

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I won't touch tint. Hate the stuff, I tried doing it a handful of times and I just cant get it on without bubbles. 

There are a lot of tint places around here. Yes its illegal to have your front windows tinted but the cops don't really bother you about it here. 

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