clear bra diy
 

so as some of you know, we of the binghamton area will diy just about anything but a full paint job lol. well i'm about to diy a clear bra on my front end. i went with 12" ventureshield and i'm gonna do part of my hood, whole painted part of front bumper, part of fender, headlights, fog lights and the small area behind each wheel. i really hope all goes well and i don't mess anything up because the B8 front bumper is full of contours lol. anybody have any advice? i know to always keep things wet. advice on cutting

btw it would cost 550 to take this to a local shop. i wasn't having that.

I actually took the Audi to a shop and watched them do it for me.

Anyway, make sure you have some friends with you to help you with the process. I watched them do the Audi and they had about 3-4 guys helping with the process (and they call themselves pro) so I suggest having that much if not more people.

I remember one guy was holding the film and applying it, the other has the squeegee, another had the heat gun/blow drier, and another wasn't constantly there but he'd come by from time to time with the sprayer to keep the film wet.

Just make sure you take your sweet ass time. Those guys took about one and a half hour (close to 2 hours actually) to do my whole front bumper and part of the hood (you know the B5 is way easier than the B8).

well i plan on taking about 6 hours just to cut it to shape for the front bumper lol. it'll probably take me 2 days to do this. i did find a really small picture of a precut kit that i might be able to do somewhat of a copy. if it wasn't for the lip and the giant grille it would be so much easier lol. i've always done things after i've looked at a lot of videos or pictures. well i can assure you i've watched enough videos on how to do this lol. i just can't find a video on how to cut the film while it's not on the car. i rly don't want to put a knife on the clearcoat no matter how light i'm gonna be using the knife

I want to vinyl wrap my whole car. May do this next spring.


http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=376442

Yeah, those guys cut the vinyl right after they applied with an exacto knife. One exception was the cut that's on the hood (since I just did 1/4 of the hood). They cut that before they applied it.

But yeah, I think it's a better idea to pre-cut for you. Although it would be extremely difficult to match the cut 100%.

headshok - That's pretty awesome. It doesn't look like it's that hard to do and you save a lot of money doing that. What color are you planning to do? I might follow the DIY to do my whole roof black.

wow that bimmer looks great. only thing is my front bumper is probably gonna be a 4 piece and i'm gonna try to make it look like the mating line isn't there somehow lol. if i can't i'll just buy a 48" piece and do the front bumper in one shot. i'm just afraid of the cutting and my paint lol

You're gonna be cutting where the parts connect (meet), so basically you won't be exactly cutting on the paint. You probably already know this but the guys that did mine actually left more than enough film before they cut it. Basically they tuck the remaining film left from the cut within the parts so they cannot be seen. I think this help a lot when it comes to getting clean result.

I think as long as you cut straight enough (perhaps with a ruler?) you should be able to hide those lines/cuts.

all the videos i've watched don't show them cutting lol. well i'm gonna need to do the front bumper in multiple pieces so i'll have to butt 2 pieces of film up on each other. if i do a good job, i'll do the whole car. it'll cost much more but it'll look way better. gonna do a gloss black roof too.

LOL.

It's funny because that's the hardest part.

Anyway, I don't know if you've seen this one. There's a part where they should the "tucking" like I told you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELb72GzDvDs

This one actually shows some of the part when the guy in black was cutting the film near the side of the car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GrxUA44Lfc

Gloss black roof would be awesome on your white car.

I wanna paint my whole car in spray-on bedliner. :p