Harvesting mirrors

I just had an idea could be bad, could be good, would harvesting mirrors for the sliver be worth it? say like going to the dump or garage sales and buying old mirrors and harvesting the silver from them be worth the pain and suffering I'm sure would ensue in the process?

There's a few cents worth of Silver at best. Not worth your time or money. Old Mirrors might be worth more as is.

Some numbers of mirrors are aluminum. Many are silver. I believe you'll find the coating so thin and thus so little silver there so as to make it not worth it.

It may be wort only if you get them for free. Even then you will probably spend more for chemicals than you recover in silver.

not to mention ... all the possible bad luck you might accrue breaking all those mirrors ! :shock:

Some mirrors have a gold plate over the silver plate, under the top layer of paint.
Some mirrors in photocopiers have a gold plate on them too.

Some certain welders lenses have a thin gold plate on them, its so thin you can see thru it.

That may give you a idea of how thin gold plating can be, just like the aluminium coating on a plastic/mylar chip packet.

Photobacterium said:

not to mention ... all the possible bad luck you might accrue breaking all those mirrors ! :shock:

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:lol:

eesakiwi said:

Some mirrors have a gold plate over the silver plate, under the top layer of paint.
Some mirrors in photocopiers have a gold plate on them too.

Some certain welders lenses have a thin gold plate on them, its so thin you can see thru it.

That may give you a idea of how thin gold plating can be, just like the aluminium coating on a plastic/mylar chip packet.

Click to expand...

Ok, it sounds not worth the time or effort. But, being I try to scrap everything and anything, would you desilver mirrors the same as keyboard mylars? I'm guessing you'd 1st have to remove the paint backing. It just sounds good on paper to waste an afternoon quick washing the hundreds of mirrors collected for free. But then again, how many thousands of sqare inches would it take to get an ozT?

Silver is used on mirrors but they have developed other methods using aluminum, chrome and nickle.

I read that even Gallium is sometimes used to coat mirrors. I dont know if that are normal household mirrors or special purpose mirros, such as for science etc.
I recently bought 20g of Gallium this stuff sticks to everything it touches as hell very easy to make a mirror with some glass and then just let the Ga drip over it and wipe off excess..

beware of Hg/amalgam in 19th and early 20th century mirrors, some time ago I read something about that

solar_plasma said:

beware of Hg/amalgam in 19th and early 20th century mirrors, some time ago I read something about that

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Very important hint..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror#Manufacturing

Dissolving the reflecting layer of a laser printer mirror at the wrong moment.
Time: 07:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta6buVzm_Aw&list=UUzQXL22XJJBAGfMrdwYKTHA

Richard- i think you referenced the wrong video.

yar said:

Richard- i think you referenced the wrong video.

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Have a look at the glass rod he is using, time 07:45.