How to remove glue from tinting

There are many rea­sons for remov­ing tint from car win­dows. Every­one has their own, and the con­se­quences of with­draw­al are the same. This is a fresh or dried glue with the rem­nants of a tint­ed coat­ing.

Let’s get straight to the point. At the same time, we will con­sid­er the accom­pa­ny­ing points: what mis­takes and unex­pect­ed sur­pris­es can be when clean­ing the glue from tint­ing.

Pho­to: wcmanet.org/

What is toning

To give solid­i­ty to the exte­ri­or of the car, the own­ers stick a tint film on the glass. Some­one does it on their own: they order mate­r­i­al on web­sites and glue it in the garage. So much cheap­er and the result is not bad. Some­one applies for a ser­vice to the ser­vice.

Glue composition

In order for the film to hold for a long time, not to leave at the edges, glue based on acrylic poly­mers is used for its pro­duc­tion. Depend­ing on the thick­ness of the film, the adhe­sive can remain tacky for 1 to 4.5 months.

Over time, the adhe­sive hard­ens and dries. This fea­ture deter­mines the sub­tleties of remov­ing the old and fresh coat­ing.

Glass features

We will remove the film from the glass. It is impor­tant for the poem to under­stand the prop­er­ties of this mate­r­i­al and its resis­tance to var­i­ous sub­stances and phys­i­cal influ­ences.

Glass refers to inert mate­ri­als that do not enter into most chem­i­cal reac­tions. This sug­gests that sol­vents for poly­mers can­not harm him.

At the same time, glass has a suf­fi­cient­ly high degree of rigid­i­ty, and it can only be dam­aged by hard­er objects or abra­sive. These include sub­stances con­tain­ing metal­lic abra­sive, feldspar, quartz, corun­dum, topaz and dia­mond.

How­ev­er, car own­ers should not for­get that fac­to­ry tint­ed win­dows are often applied to the win­dows. It can quick­ly give the glass a haze if rubbed with a thin­ner or some­thing hard. At this point, you need to pay atten­tion. because often the pro­duc­tion tint­ing is not notice­able. It only gives the glass a slight tint.

A fea­ture of the rear win­dow of the car is the pres­ence of heat­ing threads. There­fore, in order to avoid dam­age to them, we strong­ly do not rec­om­mend using rough phys­i­cal meth­ods to remove the film and glue.

Film removal methods

If you already have a prob­lem in the form of a lay­er of dried glue, you can imme­di­ate­ly skip to the next sec­tion.

If there is a film coat­ing, we will try to remove it simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the glue. If the result is unsuc­cess­ful, we will remove the rem­nants of the adhe­sive lay­er with impro­vised and spe­cial­ized means.

Heat

Pho­to: windowfilm24.eu/

The acrylic com­po­si­tion acquires its for­mer soft­ness if it is well warmed up. There­fore, we arm our­selves with some­thing that can pro­duce a stream of warm air.

It could be:

1. Con­struc­tion hot air gun.

2. House­hold hair dry­er.

3. Ther­mal fan.

To soft­en the adhe­sive, you need to direct a stream of air onto the glass, and allow the sur­face to heat up even­ly. The air­flow tem­per­a­ture should be 40 degrees Cel­sius. This is enough to remove the film and avoid dam­age to the plas­tic.

Fur­ther, with­out stop­ping the sup­ply of warm air, we will do this:

1. We pry the upper cor­ner of the film with a sharp object, take it with our fin­gers and begin to slow­ly pull.

2. We pull and at the same time heat the area where the film leaves the glass with a hair dry­er.

3. The same must be done on the oth­er side.

4. We even­ly and slow­ly pull the film towards our­selves, now from one cor­ner, then from the oth­er.

5. We com­plete­ly remove the tint coat­ing.

This method is applic­a­ble for both side and rear win­dows.

When remov­ing the cov­er from the rear win­dow, we rec­om­mend not to rush. The more suc­cess­ful­ly the tint­ing coat­ing is removed along with the adhe­sive, the less like­ly it is that the heat­ing fil­a­ments will be dam­aged dur­ing fur­ther removal of adhe­sive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion residues.

The ide­al option is when the tint is gone com­plete­ly, leav­ing no sticky marks behind.

Mechanical removal

Sim­ply peel­ing off the film with­out heat should also be done slow­ly, with­out fuss. This will save you from the tedious work of eras­ing the glue.

First of all, you need to pry off the edge of the film. Don’t let it break. Try to shoot in one piece. If there is a break in the cor­ner, pry the tint on the oth­er side and pull it so that the break remains in the cen­ter. Then, join­ing the edges, pull the entire sheet.

If the film is not old, it can be removed quite eas­i­ly. But depend­ing on the qual­i­ty of the coat­ing, the adhe­sive can either come off com­plete­ly, leav­ing only small spots, or remain com­plete­ly on the glass.

Methods for erasing glue

It hap­pens that the old PVC coat­ing begins to crum­ble. You have to remove small frag­ments, and all the glue remains on the glass. In this case, the work is delayed, and addi­tion­al glass clean­ing prod­ucts are required.

The side win­dows are a lit­tle eas­i­er. Most often it is a flat sur­face with­out for­eign ele­ments. First, let’s try to remove the glue with what is at hand.

improvised means

Pho­to: gangstawindowtinting.com/

To clean small areas, you can use blades or spe­cial scrap­ers with a sharp sur­face. Met­al objects should not have notch­es so as not to scratch the glass.

Mechanical cleaning of side windows

We rec­om­mend this method for the side win­dows of the car. Since, as men­tioned, the rear panoram­ic glass has heat­ing threads glued on, which are easy to dam­age.

To remove the rem­nants of the film and glue, you need to cook the fol­low­ing tools:

1. Spe­cial con­struc­tion scraper with a blade.

2. Replace­ment blades for a con­struc­tion knife and pli­ers.

3. Con­struc­tion tape or duct tape.

4. Water-soap solu­tion (2–3 drops of liq­uid soap per 500 ml of water).

5. Sponge for wash­ing dish­es.

If there is no spe­cial scraper, we will make a device with our own hands. To do this, break off half of the new blade for a con­struc­tion knife and seal the blunt part along with 2–3 lay­ers of mask­ing tape or elec­tri­cal tape. This tech­nique will allow you to more secure­ly hold the blade in the pli­ers.

Sequenc­ing:

1. You need to clean the glass from top to bot­tom, plac­ing the tip of the tool at an angle of about 30 degrees. The adhe­sive sur­face does not need to be wet­ted.

2. After remov­ing most of the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, pre­pare a soapy solu­tion, pour it into a spray bot­tle and moist­en the glass.

3. After 2–3 min­utes, care­ful­ly rub the remain­ing glue with a sponge. More dif­fi­cult pol­lu­tion again to clean a scraper.

4. When clean­ing the glue near the skin, you need to take the blade in your hand and very care­ful­ly scrape off the lay­er with a sharp angle, slight­ly mov­ing the tip under the seals.

5. Final­ly wipe the glass with a clean cloth.

Emulsion for removing tint without a hair dryer

We rec­om­mend using this method for the rear win­dow. If it is not pos­si­ble to pro­vide heat­ing with a hairdry­er, you can use the fol­low­ing chem­i­cal method.

Let’s pre­pare the emul­sion:

1. For 1 part water, take 1 part gaso­line, 1 part sol­vent and 3 parts liq­uid soap.

2. Let’s mix the com­po­nents.

3. Pour the mix­ture into a spray bot­tle and shake the bot­tle very care­ful­ly sev­er­al times so that the com­po­si­tion becomes white.

This mix­ture has the fol­low­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics: active ingre­di­ents in the form of gaso­line and sol­vent destroy the adhe­sive, and soap and water pro­long the action of the com­po­si­tion, pre­vent­ing it from dry­ing out.

In addi­tion to the work­ing emul­sion, you will need to work:

1. Film and tex­tile fab­ric for cov­er­ing plas­tic parts of the inte­ri­or.

2. Foam sponges with a fiber lay­er.

3. Tex­tile nap­kins.

4. Plas­tic scraper.

Pro­cess­ing sequence:

1. We close the sur­face of the plas­tic parts with a film and a cloth.

2. Before apply­ing the emul­sion, shake the can well and spray the prod­uct onto the glass.

3. We leave for 5 min­utes. When the com­po­si­tion drains, we process it again.

4. With a plas­tic spat­u­la, we begin to remove the soft­ened glue.

5. After clean­ing the entire sur­face, apply the sus­pen­sion again.

6. Now, with an abra­sive fiber of a reg­u­lar foam rub­ber sponge, care­ful­ly wipe off the remain­ing glue. If the sponge is clogged, change to a new one.

7. We clean the glass again with a plas­tic spat­u­la.

8. If nec­es­sary, repeat the treat­ment with a sponge.

9. We remove the rem­nants of the prod­uct with a rub­ber water sep­a­ra­tor.

10. 1 We apply a soapy solu­tion to the glass and remove it again with water.

11. 1 Wipe the treat­ed sur­face with a clean cloth.

Household solvents

We draw your atten­tion to the fact that when work­ing with chem­i­cals, caus­tic fumes are released that are harm­ful to health. There is also a high prob­a­bil­i­ty of sol­vent dam­age to plas­tic parts.

To begin with, we list the funds that are sold in hard­ware, hard­ware stores and phar­ma­cies:

1. Ace­tone. The paint thin­ner also dis­solves the rem­nants of sticky stains well. Safe for glass.

2. Alco­hol. Tech­ni­cal or med­ical alco­hol does not dam­age the glass, but decom­pos­es the adhe­sive.

3. Petrol. Like a sol­vent, it can dam­age plas­tic decor, but is much less aggres­sive. Inert to glass.

4. Formic alco­hol and Dimex­ide are sold in phar­ma­cies. These prod­ucts dis­solve the adhe­sive very active­ly and are safe for plas­tic parts.

5. Anti­sil­i­cone. Gen­er­al pur­pose sol­vent. It is used by motorists to get rid of all sorts of stains.

All of these sub­stances are volatile and evap­o­rate quick­ly. There­fore, the use of liq­uid will be more effec­tive if you make a kind of com­press out of them. If the spots are small, moist­ened cot­ton pads can be applied. With a large area of ​​​​con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, you can moist­en a cloth with a solu­tion.

After 5 min­utes, apply a soapy solu­tion to the entire sur­face to be cleaned and then begin to clean off the swollen glue. This can be done with a knife, a met­al or plas­tic scraper, or the hard side of a dish sponge.

Special squads

Spe­cial­ly devel­oped agents against traces of glue are high­ly effec­tive. Dif­fer­ent price ranges allow you to choose the best option.

Here is a list of clean­ers for tint­ing and glue:

1. 
   Tur­tle Wax Clear Vue Glass Clean. It has a com­plex com­po­si­tion that elim­i­nates many types of per­sis­tent tech­ni­cal stains. The aver­age price is 4 dol­lars. for 500 ml.

2. 
   Pro­foam 2000. Copes with dif­fer­ent types of adhe­sive coat­ing and many oth­er com­plex tech­ni­cal dirt. The aver­age price for a 600 ml spray bot­tle is 2,5 dol­lars.

3. 
   Body clean­er AVS Anti­s­cotch. Liq­uid in a can under pres­sure, 0.21 l. The aver­age cost is 2,5 dol­lars.

4. 
   DONEDEAL. 150 ml mechan­i­cal spray bot­tle. It is sprayed on the sur­face of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and removed with a nap­kin. Price — 2 dol­lars.

5. 
   Citosol. Safe for glass. The com­po­si­tion includes nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents that eas­i­ly remove glue. The cost of a 200 ml can is 2 dol­lars.

6. 
   KERRY 520 ml. The tint clean­er has a gel con­sis­ten­cy that facil­i­tates easy appli­ca­tion and quick dis­so­lu­tion of adhe­sive residue.

These and sim­i­lar tools can be used to save time and get quick, high-qual­i­ty results. For each indi­vid­ual case, you can choose the best solu­tion for the price.

Remov­ing tint is a sim­ple task. At the same time, the process requires accu­ra­cy and patience. The pro­posed impro­vised and indus­tri­al tools will help solve the prob­lem with glue residue on the glass.