Quote:
Originally Posted by torana68
awesome bit of recycling !!! how much did the chemicals cost?
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The dearest part is the silver nitrate @ $75 per 25 grams (but you only need about 5 grams to coat a 10" mirror) The other chemicals needed are nitric acid, ammonia, sodium hydroxide, distilled water and glucose. Nitric acid is recomended for cleaning the glass prior to coating, but is hard to buy in small quantities. I have been using hydrochloric acid as a substitute. Ammonia is also hard to obtain, liquid or as ammonium nitrate. I found that the soap used in "black and gold" cloudy ammonia settles to the bottom and clear ammonia can be decanted. Sodium hydroxide is drain cleaner and is on the supermarket shelf and pure glucose is cheap at the chemist. Nitric acid dissolves silver so if you could obtain some you could recycle the coating or even make your own silver nitrate by letting the acid evaporate from the dissolved silver.
Here is a short clip showing the chemical silvering proccess that I have adapted to coat my mirror.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vduHWV47Dg
This process is ok for a quick cheap fix , it only lasts for a few months and the coating can be easily rubbed of. Aparently there is a chemical that will condition the glass for a stronger bond but I have only found it on o/s mail order sites. I am not sure about custom regulations about importing chemicals.