Crafting The Perfect Pattern

Hey, my name's Ralph, I'm at Flexfilm, and I've got a quick tip video for you today. This is a 2008 Honda Accord. It's got one of these little annoying quarter windows that people don't even realize they're there that give tinters fits like me. There's no border. It's just a really tight boundary you have to work with. I want to show you a quick creative way to craft a pattern for a car like this. We see them all the time.

You can use your scraps. I've got some scraps from the previous windows I've tinted on the floor. I'm going to pick it up, which is a release liner from one of the side windows. I'm going to just grab this one. I'm going to use this as a pattern. But first of all, you've got to get you a Sharpie and you've got to figure out which side that you can write on. See, I can't write on that side. This is the silicone treated side, the one that had the glue on it when we pulled it off. This side, I can write on it. It stays on it pretty good.

So I want to use the right side first. I'm going to come over here and make sure all my bases are covered and I'm going to secure it on there with my smart card like this, just so it doesn't move. Just for the video, I might just trim a little excess off just so I can work with it a little bit easier. Throw that away. Probably throw the bottom side away a little bit. I don't need every bit of this. Try not to dig the paint up on the car. Maybe you can cut some off over here. Just get it down to the size. I don't need too much excess here. I'll maybe cut this a little bit, what the heck?

Okay. Then I'm going to make some relief cuts in my corners so that my marker will flow better and not bunch up. I always have better results when I do that. This is just a piece of plastic here. It's going to be real easy to ... I mean, we're going to throw it away when we're done. I just don't want it to bend funny, I want to get the best looking, straightest pattern I can. Okay. Relief cuts are made. Another last minute push down here.

And I'm going to take my trusty Sharpie and I'm going to just kind of take my time and go around it, make sure I get the right clean line that I'm looking for, because I want this pattern to be perfect. It's kind of tricky in the corners if you don't relief cut them. That's what I'm doing. Just kind of making my way around. And there we go. What the heck, I want to make sure I got plenty of black on there so I can see real good. Okay. That's it.

Now I want to take it over here to my field board right behind me. I'm going to spray it and put it up here and let you see what I'm going to be dealing with. There it is. Well, you know, my Sharpie got wet. I can still see this pretty good for me. I'm going to use this as my pattern. I'm going to put it on top of my film that I'm going to actually cut, that way. My film's real flat. I don't have to use the film itself as a pattern, because then it starts to crinkle up, and then I've got to deal the edges. I got a clean piece of film. I can put it on there. I can use my ruler to cut all my straight edges, which would be this one and this one. And then simply free hand the rest, just free hand the rest of it with your Olfa knife, and you'll get the perfect cut every time.