Whats easier for full flood coating of windows??

[Peter Dee]

On Monday I have six windows to do in etch.
I have cut them to size having measured each window carefully.
Can’t be doing with chopping up vinyl off a roll on a customers floor.

[Richard Urquhart]

I have a large office to do in London on Tuesday. I will cut the vinyl that has any logs in etc etc and will not weed, we then tpe these with app tape ready to fit and weed on site. The rest will always be cut on site as we will use close to a 50meter roll and its a band 610mm wide.
Rich
most of my installs are cut using etch onsite as the gaskets around some windows, glass etc are never good enough to precut, the only time I will do this if the customer wants a 5mm or 10mm gap from the edges.
Rich

[Stuart Miller]

No hard and fast rule for me – depends on the window size and frame condition.

When installing window film; which is a big part of my work, we always oversize by 30-40mm and trim on the glass for the neatest edge with the smallest gap.
But I use a specialist film cutter on site for quick rectangular cut.

When installing plain frost; the majority of the time I treat it like film, do not use application tape, oversize, wet apply and trim edges on glass.

If any graphics then I use application tape. Simple bold designs usually weeded before addition of tape. Intricate designs weeded on glass as Richard.

For lots of small panes I usually cut on the plotter.
5mm under-size on older wooden frames that have rough edges, bad paintwork etc that may introduce contamination under the film if it touches the edge.
20mm oversize if clean edges, and trim again on the glass.

Cutting on the glass is fast, saves time on measuring and cutting and produces the smallest edge gap once you get used to it.
Did 30 windows in a day last week which would have taken forever if each had had to be measured and cut individually beforehand.

So the reason I usually don’t bother making exact measurements of each window to pre-cut is that it would be so time consuming to measure every window, keep track of those measurements, cut in advance, transport cut film to site, etc etc.
If cutting on the glass it also produces an even trim all around. If pre-cut it may be hard to get the vinyl centred and end up with no gap at the top and a large gap at the bottom. All things which you have to consider.
OK if you only have a couple to do.

Its really what ever you feel most comfortable doing.

The other consideration which no-one has mentioned yet is what colour have you been asked to flood coat and what type of glass are you covering.

If its toughened glass then you will probably be OK but steer away from dark colours which will absorb the suns heat and may cause thermal stress cracking in standard float or annealed glass. (This is covered in other threads but should be considered in any glass application apart from frost)

[Gavin MacMillan]

Hi Stuart, what is the specialist film cutter tool that you mentioned in your post? Sounds pretty handy.

G

[Stuart Miller]

quote Gavin MacMillan:

Hi Stuart, what is the specialist film cutter tool that you mentioned in your post? Sounds pretty handy.

G

It’s called a Film Handler, comes in 2 sizes able to hold 60" or 72" x 100 ft rolls of film.
60" size is most common.

Mounts on top of a step ladder.

It holds the roll accurately and has a couple of adjustable blades which cut the film width as you pull.
Then a holding bar flips down to hold it all in place while you run a knife along the horizantal edge.
Gives a quick clean accurate cut to any rectangular shape up to 60" wide.

I Only use it with film which has a thin poly liner. Paper liner on frost would probably blunt the vertical cutting blades quite quickly, (but they can be replaced).
Not cheap around (£700), but essential for window tinting flat glass.

[Martin Pearson]

Just remember that there is a chance that dark coloured vinyls can cause windows to crack because of the extra heat that can be generated.

As others have already said each job needs looked at and depending on things like the condition of the frames etc it may influence the way you do the job. Have a good look at the frames when you go to do a site survey and go from there.

[Graeme Harrold]

If its a dry application then I measure and fit, usually if there is a pattern or cut-out. If Im going to do wet, then oversize and trim to fit, works well for flood coating.