Morris Minor Owners Club

I'm wanting to restore a period mirror with convex glass. Does anyone have any tips for cutting/shaping mirror glasses? wondered about gentle use of an angle grinder? (the mirror isn't round by the way).

Cheers Chris

Very tricky to cut for some reason.

I've never been all that successful at cutting mirrors but I do cut a lot of normal glass (I make Greenhouses for a living)

I would suggest Begging or borrowing a decent glass cutter (not the little 6 roller affairs, utterly useless) mine is an oil filled tungsten roller and that will give a nice score on most glass.

A grinder probably won't work unless you have a smooth(non segmented) diamond blade and are very very careful. A tile cutter might work with plenty of water flowing over the blade but I have never tried this so don't know for sure.

Safety note
Also don't forget that ground glass dust is not very nice and will leave a nasty taste in your mouth and do your eyes no good at all

Also don't forget that ground glass dust is not very nice and will leave a nasty taste in your mouth and do your eyes no good at all

probably not so good for your lungs either!

I used to make leadlight windows a few years ago. As PaulK says a decent glass cutter is just about essential. Before I got my proper glass grinder, I used to hand shape (after cutting) with a fine (wet!) grinding stone. It took ages, but the end result was very good.

Mirrors are particularly tricky. You might find the silver starts to lift or flake when you grind it. The best way I found to stop this was to grind a small chamfer on the silver side before final shaping to fit, and then again AFTER getting it to fit. I also found it useful to throughly dry and seal the edge of the mirror to stop it de-silvering.

In indoor applications I used to use PVA glue to seal edges. I don't think that'd work outside.

Good luck.

7.30 in the morning - I'm impressed