Silver flat glass with Pouring Silver

English Transcription of Video:

Hi, thanks for stopping by Angel Gilding. I'm Alix, and today we're working with our Commercial Mirror Antiquing Kit. We can use this kit to create some really beautiful, unique antique effects on mirrors that you've purchased from a store. Now keep in mind that this kit is designed to be used with silver mirrors and that really is the first step is to figure out if you have a silver mirror or an aluminum mirror. If your mirror was very inexpensive, if it was made in Asia and sold at a big box store, it's possible that you actually have an aluminum mirror, not a silver mirror. And for a bit more information about how to tell the difference, be sure to check out our website. But what I've got here today I do know is a silver mirror. And one of the ways I know that is of course I see that brilliant silver front. 
And then on the back here I'm seeing a copper backing. Now copper backing's like this that look kind of pale gold copper appearance is pretty common for a silver mirror. Commercially made silver mirrors are often backed with copper so as to protect the silver. So this is one of the ways that I know I've got a silver mirror and as you can tell, my mirror does not have any backing paint. I've already taken that off. I've used my multis strip, which does come in the kit. And for more information about the how-to's of removing the backing paint with Multi-Strip, be sure to check out our Multi-Strip video. I'll include a link to that in the description box below. But let's go ahead and get started on this mirror. Now I have this copper backing. It gives me some different opportunities to antique it differently.
Each effect is going to show up differently on a copper back silver mirror versus an exposed silver mirror. So for today I figured I'd split the difference. I'm going to put half of my mirror with copper backing in tap, and then the other half I'm going to take that copper backing off. And in order to do that, I'm going to use my copper remover here. Now this is specially formulated just to remove the copper. It should not affect the silver underneath. I'm going to just put a couple drops of this side over here. You don't need a lot and I'm going to use a soft cotton swab, but it really is important that you use something soft because you don't want to scratch the glass or the silver underneath and you just wipe it across the surface. It works pretty quickly here. Just make sure that I've got that copper backing off of all of it. 
One of the ways that I know that it's working is you can actually see the blue here and that's a unique aspect to copper and copper removers that it would turn blue like that. Let's see, I'm not sure if you can see that there. See that difference between the two? I've got my copper backing and my silver here. Looks like I've gotten all of that copper off there. I'm going to go ahead and rinse. Using a pump spray bottle with distilled water throughout the process is always a good idea to use distilled water. Tap water does have heavy

metals that can be perfectly safe for you and me, but could have an effect on an antique mirror that we weren't planning on. Okay, happy with that. Now as I mentioned, there's a lot of different ways to create some really unique effects and what I'm showing you here are some general ideas or guidelines. The way that you do it, how much you apply to your mirror, how long you let it sit is all going to affect the end result. So try out some different techniques. It's always good to get some sample glass before working on your masterpiece. And anytime you try something, be sure to write notes because I cannot tell you how frustrating it can be to get a beautiful result and then you can't remember what you did to recreate it. So be sure to take those notes. Let's start off first with our PFC crystals.
Now there's two different ways we can use PFC crystals. First we're going to do it diluted. That means I'm going to take my sifter cap off here and I'm going to use one of these one milliliter measuring cups or measuring spoons rather that comes in a kit and put two scoops into my disposable cup here. And to that I am going to add about 15 milliliters of distilled water. Now it's not critical that you are extremely precise with these measurements. This is just what we found works well for us. So pour that water in there, mix them around, and I want to let that PFC crystal completely dissolve. 
Okay, now I'm pretty happy with that and there's obviously a lot of different ways that you can apply this to the surface. What I'm going to do is just kind of spill it over the surface like this in whatever pattern you want to do. I think for today I'm going to go pretty dramatic. I really want to make sure that you can see the different options here, but by all means you do you just how you want to do it. Okay? I am pretty happy with how I've got it applied there and now I just need to let it sit. Now, something I hadn't mentioned before, but it's important to note is that I am using gloves. You want to use gloves throughout the whole process. Most of these chemicals are pretty safe, but it's always a good idea to use gloves in this process. And I put some paper down on my table just to keep it clean and make sure that I don't have any residue left on my work bench. But for now, let's go ahead and let this sit. I'm going to let sit for about 20 minutes and then when I come back we'll go ahead and rinse

It off and you can see the effect. Okay, so I have waited 20 minutes now I'm going to go ahead and rinse off this diluted PFC crystals once again using my distilled water. Now you want to keep in mind with any of the antiquing effects, the way that it looks on the front of the mirror when it's finished is going to be very different than what you might see in the back. So after each effect, you want to take a look at the front of the mirror to see if it's how you want it to be. And I can see here there's a pretty dramatic difference. This part here is actually the silver mirror. The copper has been removed and here the copper has stayed intact. So you can see that that diluted PFC crystal had almost no effect there on the copper backing, whereas it had a very dramatic effect when we took that copper backing off. So on the same mirror, I want to show you how to use PFC crystals in a different way and that is just sprinkling it over the surface. There isn't a magic amount of how much you sprinkle. Of course the more you put on the more dramatic the effect.
There we go. And then my surface is already a little wet, but I am going to wet it down a bit more. I've got my misting bottle here. Once again, distilled water, spritzing the surface. Okay, and I'm going to give that just about five minutes this time. That has been about five minutes. I'll go ahead and stop the time. And just like the first technique, we're going to rinse it off. You do want to make sure that you do rinse it off very well because any of the antiquing compounds that are left on your piece are going to just continue to antique it in a way that you may not want. So take your time when you're rinsing. 
Now I'm seeing some really nice effects just like before, you want to look at the front of the mirror to see how it's going to look. And I can see that that even with five minutes had a pretty dramatic effect, especially here on my silvered side. The copper side has a bit more of a subtle effect. That looks pretty nice. Now for our next technique, we're going to work with basal powder. Baso Powder can be pretty stinky, so you do want to make sure that you're working in a well ventilated area when working with it. The same as what we'll see with the LS Gel in just a little bit. So with Baso Powder, it's pretty straightforward. I've got a mirror here that I've once again took the copper backing off of half of it. So I've got silver exposed here and then I've got the copper back silver on the other side. And I'm going to go ahead and sprinkle over it once

Again, as much or as little as you want. The more you do, the more dramatic the effect. There you go. And then I do want to make sure that I spritz this with Baso Powder. I just prefer to spritz it pretty well, but it's certainly up to you. Okay, and once again, I'm going to give this technique about five minutes. Go ahead and start our timer there. And that's been five minutes. Let's go ahead and rinse off. Our Baso Powder can be especially tricky to rinse off. It kind of sticks to the back of your mirror so you don't want to take the time that it needs to really rinse it off. Well, now we've got that nicely rinsed off. Taking a look here at the front of the mirror, we can see very nice technique, quite different result than the PFC crystals I've got. 
On this side is where the copper backing has been removed and here is where the copper has stayed in place. And so the end result is quite different. Very nice speckled appearance there. Now let's check out our LS Gel. Okay, we've got another mirror here, copper on one side, copper removed on the other side. And let's talk LSS gel for a little bit. Now here I've already mixed up my working solution for LS Gel. You take the container of LS Gel that we've got here. You put two scoops, that would be 30 milliliters of theLS Gel into your spray bottle here and then add in 720 milliliters of distilled water. And then this working solution can keep as is for quite a long time. You can always have this on the ready. And like I mentioned, LS Gel similar to the Baso is pretty stinky. So keep that in mind when you're using it and it's pretty easy, you just go ahead and spray it on the surface.
There we go. Now I'm going to let that sit. Now every other technique, the amount of time I let it sit is going to really affect how dramatic it is. So for today, I'm going to go ahead and let's start with the five minutes to see what that looks like. Now that's been five minutes with our LS Gel and we'll go ahead and rinse it out. Now, one of the really interesting things with the LS Gel is it's not just eating at the silver, but it's almost changing the color of it. And I'll show you what I mean. Here's the back of the mirror. Keep in mind this isn't how the front will look, but you can tell here I've got the

Silvered area has actually turned blue and purple. In this example, here's my copper area. That's kind of purple. And we can see here on the front that it's also changed some colors. And actually the copper side here is almost starting to look like a copper mirror with that LS Gel antique. Last but not least, we have our extra fine pumice. Now using pumice as an antiquing technique is a little bit different than the other antiquing effects. It creates its own beautiful look and it's different because the other antiquing compounds are actually eating away or breaking down the silver layer in a chemical way, whereas our C, we'll be rubbing it away. So let me show you what I mean with that. Just like the other examples, I've got a mirror here where I've got copper backing removed on half of it, I'm going to use my cotton swab here, mist it with some of my distilled water.
It is important when you're doing this technique that whatever you're rubbing with is soft. The pumice is unique in that it's going to break down that silver mirror, but it's not going to scratch your glass. You certainly don't want to scratch your glass. Okay, I'll just dip it in there, get it coated in some of that pumice and then I'm going to rub it over the surface. The way in which you rub is up to you. Of course, the harder that you rub, the longer that you rub, the more you're rubbing off. But today I will do these circles here.
Sometimes you may want to especially distress the edges. Pumice is a really good one to use. I found in conjunction with some of the other antique in compounds. So you had antique the middle of your mirror and you wanted to get some rough edges to it, which is very common of a naturally antique mirror. Then pumice is a great way to do that. Okay, I'm pretty happy with that. I'm going to go ahead and rinse off my pumice. And there we have it, an antiques mirror with pumice. Now, something unique about this technique, you can see here this patterning, that's not actually what I rubbed with the pumice, but apparently there was a slight pattern in the silver in the way that it was deposited onto the piece and the pumice is bringing that out of it. So it's really up to you how your mirror works with that and if that's something that you like or not. So there we go. As you can see, lots of different options. We do have some other nuggets of fun ideas within our instructions on our website. If you have any questions about the antiquing processes that we've done today, be sure to leave a comment below. Check out our website to see a lot of different other antiquing options and be sure to subscribe to our channel to be notified of all of our future videos. Thanks!