I highly recommend
Tint Studio on YouTube. He usually does a few live streams a week of him tinting cars and interacts with his live chat with their tinting questions. Pay attention to his tooling. He also sells a lot of the stuff you would need. Now you don’t necessarily need to go with his stuff but from there, at least you will know what to look for on other websites for supplies.
*White 3M scrub pads (use this to scrub the glass clean, these do not scratch the glass)
*Stainless razor blades to scrape off any adhesives on the glass
*Spray bottles or preferably a pump sprayer with distilled water and a couple ounces of baby soap to clean the glass with
*Tint Studio likes to use like a packing tape when tinting door glass, he uses it on the door felt material around the door glass. This keeps unwanted lint/trash from getting under his tint, when you watch his videos you will see what I mean
*Decent quality microfiber towels
*glass squeegee
*break away olfa knife
*heat gun
*other specialty squeegee/cards for working tint in tight spots
Few other things I may be forgetting, check out these sites
Installation Tool Categories Knives & Blades Scrapers & Blades squeegees & handles Hard Cards Rear Window Tools Installation Aids
www.windowtintsupplies.com
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tintdepot.com
My Tint Stuff
mytintstuff.com
I think you got the right idea with at least getting precuts first, assuming they are quality precuts. Attempting just the front windows is a good idea to get your feet wet first before attempting a full car. Depending on the vehicle, the rear windshield is typically the most difficult and requires the most pre-shrink.
Tint removal for when you mess up or when prepping a car with old/failed tint....
I’ve had good luck using a steamer and removing tint in full sheets, but the older the tint or really low quality tint may be a pain to remove.. Last year I removed the tint on one of my cars, the adhesive finally started to fail and the back window was bubbling terribly after 6 years. My steamer took a **** on me so I attempted the “bag” method.
I used the multi purpose cleaner from the dollar store, it’s called “Awesome” which funny enough I later seen Tint Studio on YouTube use it as well. What you do is spray the windows down, then I cut up a couple trash bags and covered the glass with it. This locks in the cleaner/degreaser and park the car out in direct sunlight for about an hour. The warmer it is outside and the more direct sunlight, the quicker it works. Then take a Olfa knife and lift up a corner and the tint should peel off in one sheet. There may be a lot of adhesive left over on the glass. Use the Awesome cleaner and one of those white 3M scrub pads to clean all the adhesive off.
NOTE: be very mindful of your interior. You don’t want the ‘awesome’ cleaner or any other degreaser to be sitting on interior panels as it will alter the sheen/discolor any material if left on there for too long.
Another way to do this is with just straight water, and let it sit overnight, spray the glass with distilled water and cover it with a bag. Never tried it myself though, but I hear it works.
These are methods that work pretty good for removing the real glass tint so you can preserve your defroster grid lines. Usually these get destroyed during tint removal.
