Window tint removal troubling you? Just add heat!

[toddw83]

you know when window tint starts to get old and turn purple? well i decided to take on the challenge of removing it myself tonight...again. it took me 2 hours to get 2 windows done a couple weeks ago with a razor blade and "goof-off" adhesive remover. tonight, i remembered that i had a heat gun!!! thought it might speed up the process. can you guess which one i used the heat gun on? instead of 1 hour per window, it took 5-10 minutes. wish i thought of it two weeks ago.

 

[Spike Strip]

Good to know, thanks!

 

[Wile E Coyote]

Just don't add so much heat that the glass shatters.

 

[Tinker]

As an ex-auto-glass shop owner & 3M dealer, here are a few facts.

You can't heat the glass enough with a heat gun to shatter it.

It depends on the quality of the film (adhesive, really) as to whether the heat gun will do a lot. Ammonia attacks the adhesive, so another way is to spray the film with it & put a trash bag against it to hold it in. Let it sit in the sun to soak. Or you can get the edge started with a razor blade & spray ammonia there.

Word of caution: don't turn the razor blade over - the corners peel up imperceptibly & if you turn it over they'll scratch the glass.

There are commercial tint-removal solutions available but I've never used them. We would charge more to remove tint than install it - it's that nasty a job.

 

[toddw83]

i started by LIGHTLY heating an edge, so that i could start peeling it. once i got an edge going i held the heat gun about 3in from the glass on low and pointed it at a 45 degree angle away from where i was peeling. this way the adhesive didnt get gooey and had a chance to cool a few seconds before i peeled it; just enough to leave no residue behind.

 

[Zack1978]

Ammonia is the way to go.....(I never used the heat method however)



Zack

 

[thadl]

quick question...do you dilute the ammonia?

 

[TobyB]

...and I had really good luck heating the glass (quite a bit) from the other side so that
the plastic stayed intact, but the adhesive released from the glass.

I found that if I got it started, I could use the heat gun to coax it off, leaving almost no residue at all.

Scoring it into about 4" wide strips worked great.

I suspect it depends a lot on what the original film was like...

t