Anyone know a trick to easily remove tint from glass? Other than the obvious razor blade method? Is there a chemical that you ca apply that will remove it?
Some friends just leases a retail space with tint on it and they want to remove it.
In 15 years I’ve only done its only come up a few times for me and I have always just bit the bullet and razored it off. I’m not charging for this one so I want to do it quick.
I’ve never removed tint, and not sure that I would want to. But I have heard a lot of people say they use oil flow and let it soak for a while to loosen it up. Good luck!
If you take a picture of it up close by itself and then through a microscope and compare the two it will fall right off. No seriously lots of lubrication and lots of fresh blades. Make sure to use oil flow or goof off and try to peel as much as possible without tearing.
Peeling is good but it often still leaves residual adhesive. We did a job like this recently and it was a nightmare until we used oil flow. We tried goo gone and various other chemicals because scraping was just taking too long even with heavy duty sharp blades. The only thing that worked for us was oil flow.
Thanks for the ideas so far. Does anyone have something better. I’ll keep the oil flow in mind but I’m looking for something that will dissolve the adhesive super easy. I’ve done the whole lube and blade and it’s not fun. Especially when your doing it for free.
I may try this. It looks promising.
Here is another:
Oil flo removes adhesive better than anything else I have ever tried.
I wouldn’t recommend using a steamer on an IG Unit. I had a customer that cracked her window when she tried to steam clean her tracks. Perfect for car windows though.
The second video looks interesting. Seems really easy. Let me know if you end up using it and how it works.
Yes, I am familiar with oil flow, but the problem with tint is that the adhesive is not exposed but protected by the tint so the oil flow cannot penetrate it. Have you tried using it to remove tint? I have not but based on previous experience trying to remove tint I’m not sure it will work as effectively as I want. If you’ve used it to remove tint before and your experience was different please tell me I hope I’m wrong. Who cares about pride I hope I’m wrong as removing tint can be a crummy job.
The last time I removed tint I had never heard of oil flo and it’s amazing abilities. So no, never tried it to remove tint lol.
I’m not sure if it is double pane or single. I will be looking at it before I decide how I want to do the job.
I had a job with tint removal last month for the first time it was horrible. Tried a blow dryer to heat up the adhesive but didn’t work so I had to razor it off it was a long day but came out good. But I don’t know of any chemical. Wish I did.
I did 2 different tint removal jobs in the past. The first one I used baby shampoo slightly diluted in a spray bottle and razor it off. It made it real slippery and seemed to really help getting the tint off. The second job I used a steam cleaner and it came off like butter. Removed the tint in sheets. But now I read above that it may may crack the glass so I wouldn’t recommend it.
Getting the first layer (tint) is the easy part. Use the scraper to lift an edge and try to get as much off as you can in one go.Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t and you have to pull it off in strips by continuing to use the blade to bring up an edge to grab hold of. Its a bit like stripping old wall paper. Sometimes you get a whole roll of in one go and sometimes it comes off in various size strips. In my experience I have never come across anything that will simply penetrate the outer layer and dissolve it so your right there. Once you have done that you will be down to the actual adhesive. This is where you need the chemical unless you want a real good workout to build forearm muscles and have a few hours to kill. We did a large job like this last year on six large plate glass shop front windows. We tried just about everything we could think of until we got some Oil Flo from WCR. We put it in sprayer bottles and sprayed it on (Wear masks or at least have good ventilation ) After a few minutes we started scraping and that glue just dropped off the glass in large globules (Use floor protection) There were one or two missed areas after we were done but a little more spray and it was off. Oil flo not only saved us a good amount of time and effort, it also saved us from going absolutely berserk at the thought of spending more time on the job than we had anticipated.Just get the oil flo and be done with it!
Was it an IG unit that you used the steamer on? I’m thinking on commercial glass there would be less risk of cracking the unit because there is plants of space for expansion. I think that’s the main issue. If there is no room for expansion the it would crack, or maybe to rapid expansion. But guys use heated water fed poles how hot do those get? Seems it would be the same. I may call a glass shop. I leaning towards the steam method as it looks very affective.
[quote="“whatapane,post:16,topic:24352”]
Was it an IG unit that you used the steamer on? I’m thinking on commercial glass there would be less risk of cracking the unit because there is plants of space for expansion. I think that’s the main issue. If there is no room for expansion the it would crack, or maybe to rapid expansion. But guys use heated water fed poles how hot do those get? Seems it would be the same. I may call a glass shop. I leaning towards the steam method as it looks very affective.[/QUOTE]
Steam is created when water boils, so in most cases that is at least 212 degrees f. I don’t know how hot heated wfps are but I would think the goal of that is heating just enough so the water doesn’t freeze.
[QUOTE=whatapane;] But guys use heated water fed poles how hot do those get?[/QUOTE] No where near as hot as steam.
Search tint removal and you will find more info on removing. Best way is to apply lots of ammonia to the tint, then lay black plastic (trash bags) on top of the ammonia. The plastic will not allow the ammonia to evaporate and will help the ammonia penetrate the film. I usually let it sit for 30 minutes. Then start with your scraper in a corner and try to peel the film off. As you work it off slowly, use your scraper to help get the parts that are not peeling easily. I use a spray bottle and will spray the ammonia on to the glass to wet for scraping. Wear gloves, eye protection and a respirator.
Justin, Thanks for the info. Its just what I was looking for. Fortunately for me they decided last night to scrape it themselves so I’m off the hook. 
I will keep the info handy for the next time I have to tackle tint removal, which has been so rare for me that in 15 years I still don’t have a good procedure down for it.
