How is a mirror made and what is it made of?

778 views

I don’t get it.

In: Technology

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

You take glass or some see-through, stiff material and coat one side of it with a shiny metal like silver or alluminium. That’s how modern mirrors are made. However, you can make a mirror from any shiny material that’s smooth and polished. It’s a better mirror if the stuff is not colored at all, like silver or alluminium. Humans have made mirrors from water, polished stone and polished metals. The Romans used glass and lead.

Today we use glass and metals in a vacuum chamber. Hot alluminium or silver is sprayed onto a cooler glass surface which causes it to adhere.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The reflective part of a mirror is an extremely thin layer of a shiny metal, usually either silver or aluminum. Because the layer is so thin it needs to attached to something stronger so it doesn’t get scratched or rubbed away when the mirror is handled. Glass is used because it’s transparent, and it’s easy to make a very flat piece of glass which prevents the image in the mirror from being distorted. Most mirrors are made by taking a sheet of glass and applying a series of chemical treatments which cause a thin layer of metal to grow on one side. The metal then gets an opaque coating such as paint on the other side so the super thin metal coating is protected from damage on both sides.

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

I know about two types of mirrors (there may be more) which are glass mirrors and metal mirrors.

Glass mirrors are a flat piece of glass coated (thanks to a chemical process) with a thin layer of metal and a protective opaque layer. It gives you in order glass > metal > opaque layer.

Before this process was discovered, mirrors were made by polishing a piece of metal. That way you can obtain crappy reflective pans such as those you find in prisons or boot camps, or high quality antique-like mirror which offer the same reflection quality as glass mirrors.

Nowadays, the same process is used to make huge unbreakable mirrors for modern houses they are cheaper and can be recycled more easily if at all compared to their glass counterparts.