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View Full Version : What I learned during my first Veil application



Gregor
06-22-2006, 02:37 PM
The weather finally warmed up enough to try my hand at the elusive perfect Veil application. Being my first time, my expectations were not all that high, and I was not disapointed.

After all the leaky can stories I was glad to see that there was packaging change. There is now a seal on the top of the can under the lid which is very hard to get off. A pain, but no leaks. I was a little worried about dumping the whole in my effort to remove the seal.

I decided to tape off the lights with 3m Blue tape instead of using a rag or removing the lamp assembly. The rag would be easier but, I was worried that it would be too difficult to clean the Viel off the car without taking a small strip off of the light. I figured once I get better at it, I can try a rag later.

I opted for the 3 inch foam brush thanks to rx8rider. Application went on smoothly in about 2 strokes. I ended up having a problem on one corner of the light, where the Veil would bead up and pull away from the surface. I had previously cleaned the glass thoroughly with a non-amonia cleaner, but there must have been something stuck there. So removed the Viel cleaned it with some rubbing alchol, rubbing hard until the slipperness went away, then re-applied. This time it went on fine, except for the spot where there was some overlap with the existing Viel, it looked streaky and dark.

I also Vieled the chrome, just to see how it would look. Up close, its bad. 10 feet away and its got an nice titanium look to it. I tried the regular brush first which didn't work well at all. Very uneven coverage. It worked best with the smallest foam brush.

Once completed, I stood back to admire my work and noticed a couple sections sagging. I smoothed them out and they looked good again. Later I noticed they were sagging again and tried brushing them out, but only made a streaky mess. I wasn't using much on the brush but was still more than I needed.

OK so what did I learn?


3 inch foam brush rocks!
Use less Viel than you think
Clean and re-clean your lights before applying.
Don't try to smooth out sags after about 3 minutes
Be sure to soak brushes in amonia BEFORE they touch water (yes I know, its in the manual)
Liquid Veil turns into a solid when it touches water
Chrome is hard to cover and make it look good
You can Veil bolts! I put it on the bolts that hold the plate on.
Careful with that open can, it can spill very easily. I lost a small amount.

Overall I'm pleased with my first round. Its far from perfect but it could have been alot worse if not for the tips in the forum. I'm reluctant to post pics, because its nothing to behold.

strmchaxsr
06-22-2006, 03:13 PM
ack I just ordered mine today your scaring me a bit. Hopefully it will be easier than putting window tint film on cars which I have done a few times and with none of those pesky bubbles that show in the window film for some people, but that was years ago. Hopefully with my large headlights on my corolla it will work. I pan on taping areas around my headlights to. was it the cosmetic sponge you used?

Gregor
06-22-2006, 05:11 PM
was it the cosmetic sponge you used?

No, it was a standard painting brush from a hardware store. If the cosmetic sponge is more dense than that might be better. However, I think the key is to use a wider brush so you have less strokes. As I recall the cosmetic brushes are small.

As for comparing to tint film, well its closer to painting than wallpaper. I painted a dresser a while back and it was very much like that.

The nice thing about Veil is that each coat doesn't really take at that much and if you blow it, you can pull if off and start over.

holein1
06-22-2006, 06:28 PM
ack I just ordered mine today your scaring me a bit. Hopefully it will be easier than putting window tint film on cars which I have done a few times and with none of those pesky bubbles that show in the window film for some people, but that was years ago. Hopefully with my large headlights on my corolla it will work. I pan on taping areas around my headlights to. was it the cosmetic sponge you used?



Clean the headlamps, tape off area around lights, load a 2" foam brush with veil and make as few passes as possible slightly overlapping the last! I have used veil over thirty times and it seems the fewer passes you make with the brush the better the finish. Pretty much every headlamp I have coated I have been able to completely coat in just five passes (work from top to bottom)!

The process is really very simple, just don't go over the same spot a bunch of times that's when it start's to look crappy.

http://www.jasonsvideoproductions.com/howtoapplyveil.wmv

My wifes car.
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/6807/p101000520mh.th.jpg (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p101000520mh.jpg)