Fitting Etched Vinyl

[Stephen Morriss]

Depends on how much coverage really.

Small lettering I’d do dry but any large covering may well be best done wet.

Can’t remember which company it is but some ones now doing a dry fit Etch vinyl, never used it though.

Also if you’ve never used it before do a practice run on your own window, you’ll find that you have to leave it for a while before removing backing tape if used.

And make sure the windows are very clean, if your unsure clean them again!

Steve

[Jill Marie Welsh]

If you do use a wet method, use Rapid Tac 2.
Regular RT makes for a VERY slow going job.
And home-brew ap fluid would take just as long.
Stephen’s advice is excellent.
Love…..Jill

[Stuart Miller]

I fit quite a lot of etch / frost and tend to do as Stephen says. Any small fiddly graphics, lettering etc I tend to do dry otherwise the application paper will lift it back up if done wet.
However any flood coating of glass in plain frost without graphics I do wet and without any application paper.
This is not a fitting preference as flood coating of opaque vinyl I would normally recommend dry fitting but when dry fitting etch/frost it is very easy to get white pressure marks which show on the vinyl. This may be specific to the vinyls I use (Metamark) but generally I always get perfect results wet, it is definitely more forgiving and without application paper is no more time consuming than dry.
I understand Jill’s comment that it takes longer , but presume she is talking about waiting for it to tack before removing application paper. No paper no wait.
Water and baby shampoo is all I use for all my etch and window films.
Also as its on glass I always follow window tinting procedure of 1 x sharp edge scraper and 2 x rinses before install to get rid of any dust particles or even tiny glass beads which can spoil the finished look.

This picture shows how I do it although this shows tint film etch which has a very thin backing liner. Vinyl with a paper liner is more awkward to reverse roll as it ends up being a bigger roll.

I too as yet have to try the air release vinyls but not sure it would really speed things up.