Mirror Re-Silvering

I asked exactly this a few weeks ago.

The answer was buy a new one, it is likely to be cheaper.

I was going to DIY it, it's not that difficult, particularly with the smaller size of your work. Just messy.

They say you can give new mirror glass an antique look by putting a sheet of clear greenhouse glass in front of it (assuming you have room in the rebate)

I believe it is possible to do it at home, though I don't know the details. Amateur astronomers used to grind, polish and silver their own telescope mirrors, so that might be a good area to start googling, if you're really interested.

Andy

A bookmark I made some time ago...

Hence wanting to re-silver rather than replace !

AWEM

Is the sideboard good quality or a bit of tat? If tat mess about as much as you want. If good quality, messing about with the mirror would be a very bad idea - its resale value as an antique would be severely affected.

Likely to have you arrested as a terrorist these days too.

(Actually it isn't. But it probably ought. My last chemical shopping trip involved buying the ingredients for two different sorts of home- brew high-explosive and some isopropanol. Guess which one caused a problem with paperwork to track who was buying it? As to buying ethanol in 5 gallon quantities, forget it...)

have been around for a long time - just how long ?

Rob

Replying to myself --doh. Anyway here's the history answer

Rob

I've had no trouble buying peroxide and isoproponol. Don't Bolloms have a branch in Bristol?

I want a couple of litres of isopropanol for cleaning as my bottle is almost empty! :((

That asian chemist was difficult last time I bought it. Now he will probably faint. :))

Bolloms sell isopropanol?

Any french polish supplier should sell isoproponol and ethanol. If they don't, John Myland certainly do. I bought a litre from them quite recently

A while since I went there, but they certainly used to. It's a derelict building in Ashton Gate (just short of Robbins), way down South. Easy to drive past though -- most of the neighbours are abandoned and their's doesn't look much better.

I'm not a great fan of isopropanol as I find the smell only slightly better than pyridine. I clean things with it if I can't use acetone on them, but I'd much rather use ethanol/methanol for shellac.

least). As soon as you have access to powerful acids you try to disssolve precious metals in them. You store the results in glass, as not much else will hold them. The rest is just observation of what happens afterwards and applying it as a practical technique. They probably knew this stuff back in the Hogwarts era.

Amalgam silvering works pretty well (as does fire gilding), but I don't fancy arranging adequate fume control for something as big as a mirror.

Not that long..18th century I think.