Johnson - Acrylic Mirror Clear ?

[Don Gares]

Is anyone familiar with the product in the title? What I need to do is cut out some lettering in a 24" by 24" piece (actually more than one piece) of the product and then place it over a black and/or red background. My problem is that I just cannot envision if I would get good readable contrast or not. Can anyone advise?

This sign would be outdoors so I suspect that the sun might create a problem. I could use white acrylic but a thickness of only 1/8" would be somewhat translucent which would not work.

I am not worried about the customer as this is a personal project.

Happy Holidays,

Don

[Sandra Force]

I am not sure if I am understanding you correctly. If you are talking about putting a standard 1/8" acrylic mirror over opaque plastic or acrylic it will work and the contrast on black will be better than red. being outside should not be much of a problem if you use a marine grade mirror. You will need to be careful of the type of adhesive that you use to mount the mirror to the opaque so that it does not compromise the silver of the mirror.

[Don Gares]

Actually, the acrylic mirror will be going over painted signboard which will show through the cutout letters. I am only concerned about the contrast, or lack thereof, which I simply cannot visualize with acrylic mirror.

Don

[Mike Null]

Would chrome vinyl work?

[Don Gares]

I am not familiar with chrome vinyl so I have no idea if it would work or not. It is not really the chrome/mirror appearance that I really need, I just thought that it might work. I would actually prefer white but am afraid that the background would show through thin white acrylic.

All in all, I just wanted something that I could toss in my laser and simply cut out the lettering and mount it over the background.....no need to reinvent the wheel for this project.

Don

[Margaret Turco]

Don, I made a sign by just engraving straight on black cast acrylic. It engraves white and maybe that would work for you. The white fades out a bit when it gets wet so it might have to be sealed with something, but mine was intended to be inside so I didn't bother. That is about 12" diameter.

[Mike Null]

Then I would think white sign vinyl might be the easiest and best answer. You need a vinyl cutter rather than a laser. Or have your local sign shop cut the vinyl for you.

[Brian Robison]

Don, I have some license plates on my website that use mirror and black. I think I've posted a picture on SMC someplace. You may want to do a search. I think your contrast would be fine. I often substitute mirror for white in logo's on plates, ie BMW blue and mirror instead of blue and white.

[Don Gares]

I did a search and found a Beta Racing license plate that you had done and it looked great! As I have never even seen mirror acrylic, let alone used it, let me see if I understand what you are doing. Is this material just like a regular glass mirror as far as engraving goes? By this, I mean can I simply engrave on the back and then color the engraved area with various colors of acrylic paint?

If the above is correct I have just found the answer to my problem. Heck, I would not even have to cut out letters and let the substrate show through as I could just engrave and color fill the back of the mirror. Sounds like the best of two worlds, I could engrave, color fill, and also vector it to any size or shape that I want.

I THINK that you solved my problem (please correct me if I am wrong).

Cheers,

Don

[Brian Robison]

Yep, I do that all the time also. Too much area to be engraved will warp the material though. I use 60% Speed 100% power and 600 dpi to reverse engrave.
Oops, Epilog 25 watt