Our Basic & Bare Bones Kit to Silver Glass pieces

English Transcription of Video:

Hi, thanks for stopping by Angel Gilding. I'm Alix, and today we're going through the process of re-silvering a mirror as well as answering those frequent questions about the process of Re-silvering. So we will go through step-by-step that process, but I did want to answer some of those questions first off. So we will have timestamps listed in the description box below, so feel free to check those out and jump around to the particular part of the process that you'd like to see. But first, let's talk about mirrors. How is a mirror made? How is a mirror re-silvered? So a mirror in its most basic form is a piece of glass with a layer of silver chemically applied to the back of that glass with a layer of a protective backing paint on the back of that. So when you think about a mirror, for example in a bathroom, what you're looking at is the glass with the layer of silver and the layer of paint behind it.

This process of making a mirror was developed in the mid 18 hundreds, so chances are the mirror that you have on hand was made using this basic process. As you probably caught on, I did not mention anything about mercury and that's because mercury was used to make mirrors many hundreds of years ago. So before the mid 18 hundreds when this process was developed, mercury was used. Yes, it's dangerous, yes, it's not something that we recommend you work with and you wouldn't be working with in this process today. Now there's also one other technique to make a mirror, which is a vacuum deposition of aluminum. Now that's really made predominantly in Asia. It's a very environmentally unfriendly process to do. It's possible if you have a newer, inexpensive mirror that yours is aluminum, but if you've got an antique mirror, it's going to almost certainly be a silver mirror, and so we'll go through that process today.

Now, how do you know if re-silvering is the right process for you? If your glass is in good shape overall, but the silver layer seems to have degraded, then this is a good process for you. You can see on my piece here it's 16 inches wide by 20 inches long, and it's showing some of the classic signs of degrading. You can see that the silver has broken down, especially along the edges. We're seeing some of that black speckling come through. We're seeing that it must have been wiped pretty aggressively in the back, and so some of those white marks are showing through. I even have a stamp that was applied to the back of this mirror years and years ago that over time is starting to show on the front. So otherwise the glass is in pretty good shape. re-silvering a mirror will not fix glass, so if your piece has chips, if it's broken, if it's got some really deep scratches, unfortunately re-silvering will not help with that.

And actually the process of re-silvering applying this fresh, bright new silver can make some of those imperfections a bit more noticeable. Other factors to consider when deciding if this is the right process for you. If your piece of glass has some strong sentimental value, if the glass itself is unique, maybe it's a unique shape or size or it has interesting cuttings or bevels, then re-silvering is a really good option because it's not necessarily the case that you could run out to a glass shop and have them just cut a mirror to size for you. So if that's you, then certainly re-silvering works for you. So there's also obviously a lot of different sizes and shapes of mirrors that you can re-silvering. As I mentioned, ours is 16 by 20. Clearly it's a flat piece of glass. It's got a little bit of bevel, but it's overall flat glass.

So we're going to be going through the sheet glass technique with our pouring silver process. If your piece is smaller, maybe it's a car rear view mirror, maybe it's some small beveled pieces, then we have a shallow bath technique that works really well for that. I'll include the kit for that process in the description. If you have a very large piece or one that has a lot of dimension to it, then you'd want to use the spray silver process and I'll link that one below. But like I said, we're going to go through the sheet glass technique now. We're going to be using our mini silver kit. The mini silver kit is what we call our bare bones kit. It's got our most basic paired down products that you would need for the re-silvering process. It does not have all of the extra components that some of our other kits have, but certainly is going to work for us in this process.

Now, as I mentioned, we're going to be doing the pouring silver technique. So in order to be able to do this, I need to find a way that I can support my glass so it's level and it's raised above the wastewater. So like I said, it's a chemical deposition. There is backing paint over the back of silver. However, the silvering process is done with chemicals that are in liquid form, and so it's something that we want to be mindful of in terms of capturing that wastewater. The glass needs to be held above that wastewater. Now, typically for that I would be using our bench kit and you can see my very well-loved tray here. This tray supports the piece of glass above the wastewater so that the glass is not coming into contact with that and also so I can treat that wastewater appropriately. Unfortunately, my piece of glass is just a little too big for my bench kit, and this is not uncommon.

We have found people get pretty creative with the different ways that they find a tray to support their glass in that way described. So I will show you now the creative solution that we've come up with, and that is essentially a cardboard box. We've got a cardboard box that I have lined several times with some plastic that's going to hold all of that wastewater that I've got so that that's held below the level of the glass and so that we can capture it and treat it. So without further ado, let's jump right into the process of res silvering this mirror.

First things first, we need to remove this old backing paint, and so for that, I'm using my Multi Strip along with the plastic paint scraper. We like to use Multi Strip because not only is it very effective at removing almost all paints, but it's also more eco-friendly. Then a lot of other paint strippers out there. You do still want to use gloves, and as you can see, I'm just gently pushing the multis strip around. I want it to come in contact with all of the backing paint there and get a relatively even layer. It's not going to be perfect, but do the best you can to make sure that that multis strip is coming into contact with all of the backing paint so that it can lift that paint up.

Once that's fully applied over the back, I let it sit and do its work. You can see there, there's that one area in the middle where I tested with the paint scraper to see if it was lifting off. If it starts to bubble up, then you know that it's done its job, so you can scrape off that extra multis strip, remove as much as you can from the surface, and then you'll go ahead and rinse that surface off to get all that excess paint stripper off. Next up is the mirror remover. Now I will say unfortunately, we did lose some of the video footage here, so we can't show you all of the mirror being removed, but you'll get a good idea here. I'm using my multipurpose mirror remover that's going to remove both the copper and the silver backing. It's pretty common to have a silver mirror with a copper backing on it, and you can see I'm just gently wiping the surface with a cotton ball and the mirror remover.

I like to apply that thin coat and then go back and rub it a little bit more. If you have any areas where the paint is still there, you're going to need to lift those first. Next up is cleaning the glass. Now, cleaning the glass is always going to be important with mirroring, but it's especially when you're re-silvering because of course you're working with some pretty old glass. So I've got my powdered glass cleaner and my sponge here. This here that squeak is a sign of getting it nice and clean all in. It took me about six minutes to clean. This one piece of glass cleaning is very important. You want to focus on the edges and as you saw, you take a little bit of time and clean that other side as well. When in doubt, clean some more. You really want to take your time to make sure that any kind of residue is off the surface, and then I'm just rinsing here with tap water to get that cleaner off.

(09:37):
This next step is serum oxide. This is optional. Serum oxide is not part of that basic mini silver kit, but what serum oxide is going to do is polish the glass. So once we've cleaned it with the powdered cleaner, we'll go through and we'll polish it with Cerium Oxide and that's my maple felt polisher getting all the surfaces of the glass, especially focusing on those edges. I do like to take some time and clean the other side just so that any contaminants aren't running over it, and you can see I'm physically wiping that serum oxide off the glass with the sponge. It's essential when you're working with serum oxide that you physically wipe the glass. Now onto measuring, I get all of my chemicals ready. First off here I'm measuring out the tin for silver, the tin for silver, that 10 mil cylinder and the 16 ounce cup.

Those are all part of the mini silver kit, and I'm working with my distilled water. Distilled water is something you can readily buy at most grocery stores. It's pretty inexpensive, and from here on out, all the water that you see will be distilled water. I like to pour a little bit into the cylinder. That's just to rinse out the cylinder, and then I'm going to measure the rest of my distilled water to dilute down that tin. The tin always comes concentrated and you'll see these silvering chemicals are ready to use, so we don't need to dilute those at all. We're just going to be measuring them into the cup. So you'll see that we have these dosage cups as part of the mini silver kit, one for each of the chemicals, and here I'm measuring out 30 milliliters of each of the products, so that would cover two square feet, which is a little bit more than I need for my piece, but it's always good to go a little more than a little less.

Once I've got everything measured, I'm going back to my glass. You can see how I've got that glass supported in the tray. I improvised here and I'm rinsing it really, really well with the distilled water, so even though I rinsed with that tap water, I need to go through and rinse the surface really well with distilled water to get any other kind of residue off. Next up is pouring the tin for silver. Now I pour a pretty generous amount. I don't necessarily measure exactly how much of that diluted tin for silver I have. I like to make sure it's really well coated and then I'm gently rocking the glass for at least 30 seconds here. After 30 seconds of gently rocking it back and forth, that tin has had enough time to deposit. I'm not visually seeing a change, but I know that it's been done and I can rinse it.

Now, this rinsing step is also really important. Rinse more than you think you need to because you want to make sure any excess tin is off the surface. Now, I'm going to combine those chemicals into some regular disposable new paper cups. I'm going to combine the silver solution and the activator in one of those cups, and then I'm going to pour that reducer into a second cup. Once again, equal parts of each of those three chemicals. You'll see that they're all colorless liquids to start out with. When you mix them, they will start to change, so you mix right before you're going to use them, and they pour it over the surface of the glass. Set my timer and I'm going to allow that to deposit for about three to five minutes while I'm gently rocking it. You can see that's not really aggressive rocking.

I just want to gently rock it back and forth, and you can see over time here how the reflection is starting to come up that silver is developing. You want to make sure that it's reaching all of the edges. If you see there's any areas that it's avoiding, that could be a sign that it might not be clean enough, so you really want to keep an eye out on that, but otherwise, you want to rock that gently back and forth. You can see as I'm depositing the silver, it's got a nice brilliant shine to it, and then you want to rinse it off. Once I rinse off all the excess silver on the surface, I tilt my mirror and allow it to dry completely before painting. Here you can see I'm painting the back of the mirror. You want to get a nice even application. This is with the mirror backing paint that comes in the mini silver kit, and I like to use a foam roller. I find that gives the best finish. Once I've applied the backing paint to the full back of the mirror, I allow it to dry completely overnight, and then I clean up the front surface. I'm using that same mirror remover as I used before. The new silver has been fully protected with the paint, so I can go ahead with the mirror remover now to clean up the front surface any of the silver that might've crept over the edge to prepare it to go back into my frame.

There you go. Our finished silver mirror. I'm really happy with how it came out. I have a bright, fresh silver finish throughout. I do have some areas like the chipping on the edge and some parts of the glass, some light scratches that of course remain, but that's part of the character of the glass. Definitely encourage you to try this project out. As you saw, there are multiple steps, but it's not necessarily a hard project to do. Definitely. If you have any questions about this and how it might work for you, you can leave those in the comments below or you can reach out to us on our website, angel gilding.com. Thanks for stopping by.