Lasering a mirror

[matthew knott]

Been asked to laser a wedding plan on a mirror, how would you guys do this, engrave from the front or back? any tips??
Cheers!!!
MIRROR.jpg

[Robert Silvers]

Go to Lowes or Home Depot and but a $10 pack of 12x12 mirrors. Try it both ways. It takes trials to get the power just right so you will need cheap mirrors.

[Darryl Hazen]

I would engrave from the back then paint it with the color font they would like. You can laser it either way. Doing the back gives you a few more options.

[Martin Boekers]

Some (more expensive mirrors) are "mirrored" to a copper plate. Cheap mirrors engrave nicely from the back. Post a photo when your finished!

[Kev Williams]

I just went thru a not-so-fun mirror escapade. 22 mirrors for family gifts, just off-the-shelf things from some store. I found that about half of them my 40w LS900 wouldn't penetrate the mirrored backing, whatever it was. However, the same mirrors in the same place lasered like gangbusters in my 25w Universal...? It had NO problem with the coatings. On a similar vein, my 25w laser refuses to make a nice white mark on black anodized aluminum, no matter how fast, slow, power settings, it doesn't matter. I light gray is all it'll get. The 40w makes much whiter marks on anodized.

What's up with that? (and sorry for the slight hijack)

[Robert Silvers]

Pulse frequency maybe.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I have had better luck engraving on cheap mirrors. Some of the more expensive ones had a thicker backing and one batch had a grid-like pattern in the backing that was really difficult to engrave thru. I never took pictures, but I had some nice results engraving on the back and painting with different colors such as copper metallic, gold metallic. I engraved a name on the back of one little mirror and painted the back a hot pink for a friend's teenage daughter's locker. She loved it - her name showed up in hot pink thru the mirror.

[john swank]

I use the mirrors from Lowes all the time. Make sure you get the ones without any adhesive on the back. Engrave from the back.

[Dan Hintz]

I would engrave from the back then paint it with the color font they would like. You can laser it either way. Doing the back gives you a few more options.

This is always my vote... from the back. It looks cleaner since there's no multiple reflections of the text to make it look blurry.

[Tim Bateson]

I can't think of a single reason I would engrave a mirror from the front, although there are probably a few. That's just my opinion of which you'll find many here. So follow the earlier advice and buy the cheap mirrors and do some testing.

[Dave Sheldrake]

First or second surface mirrors Matt?

cheers

Dave

[Kev Williams]

I can't think of a single reason I would engrave a mirror from the front, although there are probably a few. That's just my opinion of which you'll find many here. So follow the earlier advice and buy the cheap mirrors and do some testing.

I engraved the 3 Disney hitchhiking ghosts onto the front of three 12x18" mirrors for a lady for Halloween-- The second 'ghost' image reflecting from surface of the glass is actually really cool when you walk by the mirrors-

[Keith Outten]

I always engrave mirror from the back.
I also keep in stock both silver and gold acrylic mirror for several reasons. Acrylic mirror is lighter in weight and since you can vector cut acrylic there are more options available.
.

[Dave Sheldrake]

I always engrave mirror from the back.
I also keep in stock both silver and gold acrylic mirror for several reasons. Acrylic mirror is lighter in weight and since you can vector cut acrylic there are more options available.
.

Tougher as well from memory isn't it Keith?

cheers

Dave

[matthew knott]

Thanks guys, back it is then !!! not something i would normally do but its a 'favour' no doubt it will all go wrong as 'no good dead goes unpunished'