Mirror Engraving Question

[Mark Ross]

Question on glass mirrors. We do a ton of acrylic single and 2 way mirrors and I haven't had any success with acrylic mirror and pictures, so I went to Lowe's and bought some mirror tile. Use the soap method, 300 dpi 40% speed and power.

This is what the mirror looks like. At some angles it is dead on at other angles the picture almost looks like a negative or you see pieces of it. The one picture I am holding the mirror up to a light to see what it looks like backlit, which is actually cool, but I am wondering if I can get the picture from the backlit post as my normal mirror under various viewing circumstances.

Hope this post makes sense.

[Dave Johnson29]

Mark,

Try holding something darkish colored (black or red) against the back. If it looks good then spray paint the back of the mirror.

I sometimes do two and three passes. Paint after each pass to get more colors.

[Bill Cunningham]

I assume you are engraving from the back.. In which case, don't use soap. It's not needed, and some mirrors have a coating on the back that can be ruined by water.. Learned this the hard way years ago, when my wife 'insisted' I put the bathroom mirror back on the wall right after we wallpapered the room. The water penetrates the edges, and turns the silver mirror edges black.. Once you laser through the back, you can use spray paint, or even coloured paper or metallic foil for special effects..

[Dan Hintz]

You need to invert your image (black and white, not left to right). If you notice when placing it up against the light, the areas that leak light through are showing as white and the mirror portion itself is showing as black. when inverted and painted black on the back, you'll get what you want when the image is hanging in a room.

[Frank Corker]

I agree with what Dan has just said.

[Mark Ross]

Hmmm...

I swore I inverted the image from the original photograph...now I gotta go see. Since we sell lighting and this machine is a compliment to our products, I like the idea of backlighting or edgelighting the mirror, I've tried both and they both look really cool.

Thanks for the input.

[Steve Clarkson]

I'd be interested in seeing how you would backlight it......sounds interesting,

[Darren Null]

I swore I inverted the image from the original photograph

You did. That's why the photo works against a light, because the light is doing the white bit and the mirror is acting as black by way of contrast.

If you're intending to use a backing, you DON'T invert the image, as the holes/backing does the black, and the mirror does the white.

Invert for backlighting, don't otherwise. In both cases you want to flip the image left <--> right

[Dan Hintz]

I'd be interested in seeing how you would backlight it......sounds interesting,
Steve,

Place a think piece of side-lit frosted acrylic behind it... looks nice.