Write-up : How to apply a clear-bra!

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Razi
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Clear Bra Write-up! (Rough draft)Rock chips are annoying, especially when you just got your car painted and after a few trips on the highway your front starts getting chipped. That’s why I wrote this write-up, if you ever tinted your own windows, applying this is similar. (Except your car has more curves than a window )

Stuff you need!Empty spray bottle. (I got one from the 1 Dollar Store) Squeegee & Retractable knife (Make sure it’s sharp)

And of course a sheet of protective film (clear bra!) I used a 3x5ft sheet for this one.(My dad bought the sheet on e-bay, I didn’t use the 3M one, but I recommend it, it’s probably better than the kind I bought) You might want to buy 2 if you aren't confident about your skillz.

Last but not least, the hair dryer. This is your friend, learn to love him.

Now first, you must clean your car like this!

Stare at your clean car for a while as it dries and go take out that roll of protective film you bought on eBay.

Then grab your empty spray bottle and fill it with a little bit of soap, and A LOT of water. Stir it up, or be like Bond and shake it (Shaken not stirred). Make sure you mix it up real nice.Then spray it and make sure it's spray looks similar to this. (Not much bubbles)

Now set that aside and place the roll of clear bra on top of your car and figure out how you want to cover your front end. Then pull out a roll of masking tape and tape parts of the film down to hold it in place. (MAKE SURE IT IS COMPLETELY EVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Grab you pencil and start tracing the outline of the hood , then when you think you got it traced right, pull it off and place it on a clean table and with you awesome skillz, use your retractable knife and cut that portion out.This is how it should appear when it is roughly placed on the hood.

Easy right? now place that piece aside, you are almost through.

Now here comes level 2! This part is a bit tricky because the pop-ups on the chuki curve in at the bottom.

Place down your protective film again, make sure it's nice and straight, get your helper to make sure it's nice and straight and now tape the protective film onto the car with masking tape.

Start tracing the pop-ups and roughly guess the shape of it as you start tracing it. If you cut it too small don't worry, you want there to be a gap as shown on the picture.You need a slight gap, because the protective film might not stick well on the outer edges because there is a slight curve on the body panels at the edge.

Now when you are finished cutting it, place that piece onto the pop-up light cover and make sure it's a nice shape, if it isn't take out your pencil and start making adjustments, and trim it off.Once you think it's good, flip it and trace it onto the large sheet and cut it out. Now you just made a mirror image for your other pop-up light cover.

Now for the BUMPER!This is the tricky part, me and my dad stood there staring at the bumper like "Omg how are we gonna make this fit"Well we figured it out, and this is how.

As you know the bumper on the chuki is very curvy and the protective film doesn't like that (Since it is flat not curved).What you need to do is cut it out like this.Yeah I know it looks weird, but when you put it on the bumper, it looks like this.(Highlighted in red)Also the flaps on the ends are to also cover the area around the headlights.Like this.Go take a look at the picture where I highlighted the bumper in red, and now pick up what's left of your big sheet of protective film and align it, then tape it onto the bumper again.

Start poking around where your signal lights are to get a feel of the curve around it, then start tracing it. Make sure it's nice so it fits well.Then start pokin around and get everything straight. Then cut out the flaps on the end. It should look like this at the end.PHEWWWWWWWWWWWWW Hard work. Sit down and grab a drink and cool off a bit, cause here comes the real labor.

Remember the Squeegee and the Hairdryer? Pull those out and get ready!Alright, grab the piece you cut out for the hood and start peeling the film away slowly, and have your helper start spraying the soapy concoction at it. Then tell him/her to spray down the area of the hood you want to apply the film.

Now place it down and start making sure everything aligns. (REMEMBER YOU WANT A SLIGHT GAP AWAY FROM THE EDGES). (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT)

Now spray down the whole protective film down (this gives a slipper surface for the squeegee to work on).Then start to squeeze the soap out from underneath the protective film. (This makes it stick onto the hood)

While you do this, becareful not to push so hard that the film moves around. I suggest you start pushing from the middle of the film. If the film gets too hard to move the squeegee around, spray more soap on it.

Once you got the majority of the soap out from underneath. Spray soap on it again, and start pressing the last little bits of soap from underneath. (This guarantees you a long lasting stick)

Do the same thing when you apply the film on the pop-ups. Except you will need your hairdryer for this. Since the pop-up cover is slightly curved and the film is not, you need the hairdryer to shrink parts of the film so it conforms to the shape of the pop-ups. If the bubble is stubborn, push the bubble around to other parts of the film and keep trying to shrink it, it should go away.

Now this is the hardest part. The bumper. (As you all know the Chuki has an emblem smack dab in the middle of the bumper, you can pop it out if you like, or you can cut that portion out as you apply the film. (I did the latter, and it didn't turn out the way I preferred, so if you can, pop out the emblem)

Spray down the bumper just as you did the hood, and peel off the protective film just as you did the hood. Now place the film on it, and align the top of the film to the top of the bumper.

Right about now it should look like a huge mess. BUBBLES EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No fear yet, spray down the protective film, and double check your alignment and start gently pushing the bubbles out with your hands. Now you should be left with a whole bunch of big bubbles.

Start by pushing the bubbles out from the middle of the bumper. (Where it's the least curvy)And take your time and start pushing the bubbles out as much as you can.By now you should be feeling completely lost and hopeless. No fear!

Take out your hairdryer and start heating up the huge bubbles and start trying to squeeze em out. They will be stubborn, and they will not seem like they are going away. Move the bubbles around, as shown below.This makes sure you don't fold the protective film and create an ugly kink in the protective film when you meet a stubborn bubble.Sometimes a bubble will refuse to move, when it does this, slightly lift up that part of the film and spray under the film, so the bubble moves around more freely.Don't feel hopeless when the bubbles don't seem to stop, just keep lifting it up, spraying more soap, and pushing it around.

Eventually you'll get to a point where the bubbles actually start conforming well to the bumper's shape, but once you feel good and start working on other bubbles, the previous bubbles reappear. Don't be angry! ( )

Go attack that reappearing bubble again, and once it seems like it disappeared, spray down the film to make it slippery again, and start pushing on that spot with your hand, while you heat it up with hairdryer. Now turn off the hair dryer and keep pressing on that area and start blowing on that area with your lips to cool it down. This makes the film become less softer, and finally it holds it's shape.

Finally once you are done you probably have some pieces of the protective film left, you can cut pieces out and place em anywhere you wish. My dad cut out 2 rectangles and we placed em in the area traced in red.If you have enough left, you can even cover your side view mirrors if you want, or your sideskirts or the sides of your bumper, where mud and sand fly up and scratch whenever you drive around a dirty area.

Do this for every area, remember, don't give up. And as I said before, keep pushing the bubbles around and if it gets stubborn, lift up that area slightly and spray soap under it so the bubble moves more easily.

In the end, it should be very hard to see the clear bra.

Other cars: [If you want me to do a rough draft on your car (ex: Zenki, Kouki, Silvia) send me a picture via e-mail and I'll see what I can do.](These are just basic rough drafts to help you slightly with thinking out the pieces)Pignose! (Picture courtesy of 1rst240sx)Cut out a rectangular piece for the area above the "noses", with the small triangular shape on the bottom) Hood and pop-ups should be similar to chuki. Bumper piece should cover similarly to the Chuki, and also the rectangular pieces can be used to cover the area below the signal lights as I showed above.

(This probably has alot of errors here and there, and I shall fix that later on. Or email me if you find any errors you want me to fix.)

Modified by Razi at 5:32 PM 9/24/2008
Modified by Razi at 5:37 PM 9/24/2008


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sr20deTsomeday118
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sexy-finished product?

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Razi
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Look at the first picture. It's my car that already has the film on.

I couldn't get you guys pictures of me doing it, cause I already applied it about 2 weeks ago and I never took pictures. I might apply it onto other cars, if any local guys want me to do it instead. Then I could take very detailed pictures of the process.

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Dittoz7
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Awesome Write-Up!


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Razi
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Haha thanks.

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ArcherV20
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In addition to:

How do REMOVE bras

Step 1:



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Feel free to mod and delete this post. I just thought it was fun.

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Razi
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Broadfield probably does it everyday.

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ny240gtr
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good write up man if you want to make some extra bucks you should precut them and sell them to us

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White Comet
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ny240gtr wrote:good write up man if you want to make some extra bucks you should precut them and sell them to us
not a bad idea.

wheres the type x love though?

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StricNyne
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this is interesting, how visible is bra, how much did it cost you ?

1rst240sx
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SWEET!!!!

Thank you for the right up , Im going to do this on my car when I get it painted

Also thank you for the credit on the pic I sent


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sideslider
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how would u remove it if someone wanted to replace it

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Razi
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Bra is pretty invisible. Sometimes I forget I have it. I believe my dad got the 3x5 sheet off of ebay for $20.

If you want to remove it because you don't like it, or it got damaged, you can just peel it off.

LOL WC. If I ever meet a guy around here with a Type X, I'll take a good look at his bumper and see if I can make a template or w/e.

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sideslider
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u can peel it off and it wont damage the paint

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Razi
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Indeed.


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