Front Windshield Sticker

[Wacky Dee]

I have a black R34 and wanted to put a black sticker accross the top of front windshield .. I want it black fading down to visible through like a factory tint, with some writing in the middle (no colour, just cutout letters)

Any sydney shop that does stuff like this? By the way, what'd the max legal height of the sticker from the top of the windshield? I know there's a limit so as not to reduce visibility but since tints are legal at the top I am guessing stickers must be too but within some sort of limit

[75coupe]

Front windscreen stickers, basically any decent sign sign can help you with that but, fading from black to clear will need to be thought about as you cannot actually get black fading to clear without either printing black on clear with a gradient to nothing, (that will leave you with a clear sticker line across the windshield highly unnattractive and printing black on clear won't look good and won't competely block light and will be patchy or streaky due to digital printing)

or What I would do would be to create a gradient out of a shape, normally peoople would use a circle (dot) which would get smaller and smaller until nothing is left, if you can visualise that a coarse gradient (there is a limit to how small these circles or dots can be though), I would be tempted to use a custom shape, if you watch V8 super cars they use jet fighter shapes repeatedly reversed out of vinyl across their windscreens, this gives them some visibility but blocks some sunlight.

Legalities suck... cause I've heard that basically any non factoiry sticker over 20mm in height can be seen as illegal, although I have only heard of them enforcing this rule on P platers who tick them off, I wouldn't worry about the legalities as if they try get you for it just rip it off in front of them, no sticker no issue as far as I'm concerned, but I have covered complete rear screens and had no issues, yet put on a P plate and a small SAU url sticker on the back screen and you could cop a cops attitude... go figure...

also keep in mind the curve of the windscreen when getting one done as it changes the design slightly...

a transparent black can be done but not fading to clear.

Edited August 4, 2008 by 75coupe

[Wacky Dee]

have you got any example photos of work you've done just for front windshield stickers? i could only find one on your web site ...

"a transparent black can be done" - could you please explain what you mean by that? What sort of cost am I looking at .. ball park figure?

[Sagiedaks]

It may be easier to get a sheet of window tinting that is already faded say from black almost impossible to see through to clear (kinda how you see reflective tinting that fades out) and just get a stencil cutout of whatever you want.

Thatway, you can also replicate it easy.

[75coupe]

Yep, window tinting film is a good material to use for this as you can easily choose the tint level then you can use a good quality vinyl of any colour to do and logo or writing that is visible on the outside (window tinting goes on the inside, graphics on the outside), even the cheaper tinting films are fairly good, its not easy stuff to handle in large areas, but your requirement should be easy for you. The hardest part will be getting it straight on the window. I'm yet to see fading window tint that goes to clear, but even if it does you will be left with a clear edge that personally I would find annoying, cutting a design in window tint film would be annoying to install as well as window tint films don't usually have a backing paper, you could use one I guess though.

I have tinted windows myself before and its not hard to do once you get your technique right, most films have good instructions to follow, just don't get frustrated on your first attempt, it is a very thin and easily kinkable film, which is not the case with vinyl graphic films.

I don't normally do windscreen graphics only because I don't find a big call for them. I mostly do entire custom themes. But I would be glad to do a design for you.

Edited August 5, 2008 by 75coupe