Originally Posted by saywat?

nice wat'd u use to clear it?

Originally Posted by Thirty_Seven

So the previous owner of my car tinted the tail lights at some point and did a horrible job. I don't think he cleared them at all and after a couple passes of compounding and polishing, the tint was gone and there was absolutely no UV protection.

The lights started showing signs of wear and there were a million little "cracks" and they looked very faded and always drove me nuts. Today I sanded them down and tinted them, and I think they came out pretty good.

Here's my process in case anyone is interested:

1. Clean the tails with 1:1 mix of rubbing alcohol and water.

2. Remove tails or mask off surrounding area. Apparently removing coupe tail lights requires breaking off a clip so I chose to mask off the area with newspaper.

3. Apply the tint spray. I used VHT Night Shades, which is a popular choice. I did 3 coats with 15 minute drying times between coats. It was pretty hot out which helped.

4. After the final coat of tint, I waited 1.5 hours and then wetsanded both tails with 1000 grit sandpaper.

5. I started applying clear coats. I did 6 coats, again, 15 minutes between.

6. Wetsanded the clear coat with 2000 grit after waiting 2 hours.

7. Compounded and polished both lights.

EDIT: Went outside today and noticed some orange peel in the lights so I wetsanded with 1500 grit, then again with 2000, then compounded and polished. Now they're super smooth.
Now, here's what you were waiting for, pics!

You can see the fade and cracking in the lenses here:







Here's the final results:





Cracks are gone!

Originally Posted by Mattyem

They look great!!!
Please tell me you live in Colorado so I can pay you to do mine haha.