Mirrors

Mirrors are always a pain to use. Very often they develop the creeping crud, a mysterious black blob that devours your mirror. Usually it's caused by too much flux that dissolves silver. Also ammonia based products can be to blame. So be sure when you get a glass cleaner, it actually says safe for mirrors on it. To prevent this, here are a few ideas to try reducing the stuff, or get rid of it completely.

Make sure you very careful when grinding mirror, a few things could happen:

Little chips of glass can pop up around the edges, giving the flux a better surface coverage to do it's nasty little magic.
Scratches can occur on the back of the glass, giving another opportunity for damage, so grind with caution.

When I work with mirror, I try not to grind it. Instead I use a glass file or a carborundum stone and very carefully go over the edges. Make sure, though, when you do this not to pull towards the gray side, or it may chip.

Seal it with mirror spray. I found that mirror spray looks a lot like polyurethane spray, and does a similar job. Another technique used is to use clear nail polish on the edges and about 1/4" or so on the back. This one may take a while though.

Once you go through the sealant ritual, it's time to foil. The important thing to remember about using mirror is what patina you're planing to use. If you're going to use copper patina, plain copper foil should be fine. However, if the solder is going to be black, the mirror's reflection of the back of the tape will show copper. So make sure to use a black backed tape.

When soldering, try to use as little flux as you can, and, as soon as the bead cools, try to remove as much flux from the glass and the table as you can. They do make a mirror flux, but I found that it's pretty gooey stuff, tends to smoke a lot, and was difficult to get off the glass, (or at least the stuff I was using was).

Clean the glass with either a flux remover or a combination of baking soda and a drop or two of Joy dish washing liquid to remove all the flux before patinaing. The baking soda is used to neutralize the flux.

Make sure to clean the mirror really well before you take a photo of it. Mirror tends to show every last piece of dirt, and every finger print.

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Last modified March 14, 1997

Started on 9-22-98