|
Other Vintage Household Electrical or Electromechanical Items For discussions about other vintage (over 25 years old) electrical and electromechanical household items. See the sticky thread for details. |
|
Thread Tools |
10th Mar 2022, 3:04 pm | #1 |
Pentode
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 204
|
Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
I am the proud owner of an illuminated (mains light bulb!) Walligraph bathroom mirror. Unfortunately, the mirrored surface is flaking away.
Has anyone any experience of having mirrors resilvered? Thank you.
__________________
|
10th Mar 2022, 3:34 pm | #2 |
Heptode
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Worthing, West Sussex, UK.
Posts: 983
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
There are companies that re-mirror Newtonian reflector mirror's for telescopes, but they won't be overly cheap.
|
10th Mar 2022, 4:26 pm | #3 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Lynton, N. Devon, UK.
Posts: 7,059
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
I've had concave mirrors (back-silvered), 15" diameter as used for arc lamps, so they run rather hot, resilvered - very satisfactory.
Unfortunately, it was a very long time ago and I've no recollection of the company! But there certainly are people who'll do it. |
10th Mar 2022, 5:01 pm | #4 |
Heptode
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Duffort, Gers, France
Posts: 714
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
You can get mirror re-silvering kits.
__________________
Stuart The golden age is always yesterday - Asa Briggs |
10th Mar 2022, 5:08 pm | #5 |
Triode
Join Date: Feb 2022
Location: Burnley, Lancashire, UK.
Posts: 11
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
Wow! that looks dangerous to be in a bathroom being mains, getting it re-silvered with the 'un-silvered' light hole might be a problem.
__________________
The most unreliable part of a car is the nut holding the steering wheel! |
10th Mar 2022, 5:14 pm | #6 |
Guest
Posts: n/a
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
Try removing the silver from a new (cheap) mirror. Wouldn't take much to do, apply thick tape, cut circle, clean with something, mechanical/brasso. Don't remove the tape.
|
10th Mar 2022, 5:17 pm | #7 | |
Guest
Posts: n/a
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
Quote:
|
|
10th Mar 2022, 6:12 pm | #8 |
Pentode
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 204
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
__________________
|
10th Mar 2022, 6:16 pm | #9 |
Pentode
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 204
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
I was really looking for a man who 'does mirrors' in his shed. You know, the one all the antique dealers use. There is always someone - it's just finding them!
__________________
|
10th Mar 2022, 6:19 pm | #10 | |
Pentode
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 204
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
Quote:
If I can get it silvered I can possibly grit blast the backing away for the hole. I think that that was how it was done originally.
__________________
|
|
10th Mar 2022, 7:09 pm | #11 | ||
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Cottingham, East Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 5,737
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
Quote:
The IEE specify three zones as to electrical appliances in bathrooms - Zone Zero, Zone 1 and Zone 2. Electrical equipment for use in bathrooms also has an 'IP' rating, for mechanical and water ingress protection. Zone 0 is anywhere inside a bath, basin or shower itself. It’s defined as ‘any area within a bathroom that can hold water’. Any fitting or appliance used within zone 0 must be a maximum of 12 volts 'SELV' (Safe Electrical Voltage) and fully protected against both partial and total immersion in water (minimum rating of IPX7). This explains the regulations: https://www.drench.co.uk/blog/how-to...ectrical-zones I would have thought that the mirror which is the subject of this thread doesn't come close to complying with present day regulations and would fail on ingress protection alone, which I suppose is why all such mirrors presently on sale are LED ones powered from batteries below 12 Volts. EG: https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/...E&gclsrc=aw.ds
__________________
David. BVWS Member. G-QRP Club member 1339. |
||
12th Mar 2022, 6:56 pm | #12 |
Nonode
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Coulsdon, London, UK.
Posts: 2,152
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
I have read that the standard 'silvering' used on mirrors is not suitable for bathrooms.
An additional moisture proof layer is required. |
18th Mar 2022, 8:59 pm | #13 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Staffordshire Moorlands, UK.
Posts: 5,263
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
HWMBO had a new bathroom mirror, the sort with a built in LED light and a radio. (its all 240V).
The mirror silvering has already started going brown at the edges, so it looks a bit tatty. Good idea to feed it with 12V, you might be able to retain the lampholder as you can get low voltage led repro lamps that have BC and ES bases from ebay. SELV = Seperated Extra Low Voltage ie the system cannot put dangerous voltages out due to insulation failure, unlike some 'other' sources of low voltage.
__________________
Kevin |
19th Mar 2022, 11:03 am | #14 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Oxfordshire, UK.
Posts: 4,310
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
Quote:
I used to use aluminised mirrors a lot at work. They were all coated by vacuum deposition. For small ones (up to maybe 150mm diameter) we had a technician in a workshop with the required cleaning expertise (this really matters - a speck of dust will, over time, create a hole in the coating which will then spread) and a vacuum chamber with a simple evaporative deposition rig in it and a monitor to check when the coating was thick enough. If we needed anything larger coating (we had metre-sized optics) we sent them away to people who had the same kit on a larger scale. It was a 2-stage process - clean, then deposit - no intermediate layers, no chemicals to manage, no waste to dispose of. The simplicity made it relatively cheap. There are, of course, commercial re-silverers. A moment's Googling came up with these folks https://www.antiquemirrorglass.com/works/restoration. I've no connection to them at all, they were just the first on the list. They talk about £200 per sq metre, which sounds about right (I imagine they may have a minimum charge too). I also imagine they won't be wildly more expensive than everyone else who's doing this. If they were then they'd be out of business. EDIT: By the way, I wouldn't try removing the coating using grit-blasting, unless you can accept the light coming through 'frosted' glass. We had a bead blaster at work which we used to create frosting when we needed a light diffuser. The best way to remove aluminium coating is to use weak sodium hydroxide solution to dissolve it away. We occasionally did that too. Cheers, GJ
__________________
http://www.ampregen.com Last edited by GrimJosef; 19th Mar 2022 at 11:10 am. |
|
19th Mar 2022, 12:33 pm | #15 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
Posts: 5,549
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
This method looks quite simple if you like spraying.
https://youtu.be/4kx3jtNl0yE |
20th Mar 2022, 12:34 pm | #16 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Leominster, Herefordshire, UK.
Posts: 16,526
|
Re: Resilvering Mirrored Surfaces
Quote:
I suspect that having a good few watts there would be helpful to stop any condensation forming on the mirror!
__________________
....__________ ....|____||__|__\_____ .=.| _---\__|__|_---_|. .........O..Chris....O |
|