How I silvered the mirrors

Silvering, What a bitch the first 17 times, but after much reflection, thought, and
experimenting, I kind of really enjoy it now, and the last attempt was a 100%
success. Ive been told that you really dont know something, until you can
teach it. So Im going to try and produce a written procedure that hopefully the
average ATMer can follow.
Let me start with the Gotchas Those little details that ruin the whole process
and make your life miserable.
Your going to add too much ammonia, and the damn thing WILL NOT
work if you do
If its greater than 80F, your probably going to end up with white mirrors
instead of Silver mirrors.
Your mirror will not be perfect, it may be close, but I have yet to make
the PERFECT silver coat. The good news is that, in the dark, they still
work incredibly well, and look really nice
Its probably going to take more than one try. Even if the silver coating
itself works, your probably going to put a sleek in it, rub it too much,
drop a cotton ball on it while its still wet and take a big chunk of silver
off, OR think you can do better. Knowing when to stop screwing with
the mirror is the HARDEST part!
Silver Nitrate Stains! It will get in the un-godliest of places. Its like it
just jumps out of the container and heads directly for the item you
most cherish, or whatever item you would get most pissed off about
being stained. It reminds me of Roofing Tar or butyl caulk!
The next thing I have to talk about is Safety!
Silver Nitrate mixed with Ammonia, when left undisturbed for an
unknown period of time (most texts says days) CAN (notice it says
can, and not will) produce Silver Fulminate, or Fulminating Silver
depending on which text you read. This neat little compound has the
distinct characteristic of being a rather decent explosive once dry, and
is set off by vibration or impact. You know those little paper Pop-
Rocks you throw on the ground and they go BANG, they are made
with incredibly minute quantities of Silver Fulminate. Now Imagine
having a glass jar full of concentrated Pop-Rocks, sitting on your
counter, just waiting for you to bump it! Yea, its not a good idea!
To avoid inadvertently making explosive compounds is REAL simple.
Dont let the shit sit around! Make the silvering solution the same day
your going to use it, Discard it by pouring it down the drain with
LOTS of water the same day. Simple, so long as you dont forget
about it while admiring your mirror!
Were going to be working with a couple potentially dangerous acids and
bases. These Items can injure you, but your probably not going to die
from them unless you drink them. So dont drink them! (There is one
exception to this idea, and that is if you decide to make your own
Silver Nitrate, something I Dont recommend).
Best Practices for handling Chemicals:
DONT DRINK THEM!, Dont Eat or Drink while were
playing, Try not to smoke
Try not to get any of this stiff on your exposed skin.
Try not to breath the vapors.
Whatever you do, DONT get any in your eyes! The acids
arent so bad (relatively speaking), but the Bases (Sodium
Hydroxide) will most assuredly blind you in short order.
The Simple answer to all of these problems is to wear a long
sleeved shirt (Or rain suit if your paranoid) Rubber gloves, and
safety glasses. I started off in full protective gear, but youll find
me silvering in Shorts, a tee shirt, Long rubber gloves, and
safety glasses.
One last thing about your author, Im a computer geek that in 1985 Took
high School chemistry 1 and still remembers most of it. There is a very
good possibility that I might be dumb as a box of rocks! I may have just
been incredibly lucky not to have killed myself during all my efforts. So
for heavens sake, dont take my word for something, Go look it up and
understand what were doing!
OK, enough of that, if your still inclined to Silver your own mirrors, lets get on
with it!
You need to scrounge up the following items.
A 12 pack of 1 quart, narrow mouth, Glass canning Jars (aka Mason Jars)
A big bag of 100% cotton balls
A roll of clear packing tape, 3 wide or so
A plastic spray bottle
Some Paper cups and towels
Roll of Solid Pipe Solder, Not electrical or rosin core solder, should be
95% tin and 5% antimony, or just a chunk of pure tin.
A cheap gram scale, try your local Head shop or Marijuana enthusiast
supply center not that I would know anything about that
Chemicals: You can get most of these from local grocery, hardware or
health food store.
Silver Nitrate (25 or more grams) Try www.postapplescientific.com
100g for $40us (see Note at end of document)
Nitric Acid, Concentrated, you wont need much! Try
www.postapplescientific.com
Muratic Acid, Pool Supply
Sodium Hydroxide, 25g+ from www.postapplescientific.com or local
grocery or hardware store in the form of drain cleaner. Make sure it says
Sodium Hydroxide on the bottle and contains a dry white crystalline
substance. I used Red Devil Drain Cleaner.
Bottle of Clear ammonia, cheap stuff from grocery store
Fructose (or Dextrose) 25g+, grocery or health food store, sugar
substitute, White Crystalline substance.
Bottle of Rubbing Alcohol, or IPA
2 gallons of Distilled water, Not drinking water, Spring water, or De-
ionized water! (well, de-ionized might/should work)
Red Rouge and a Chamois cloth (maybe, depends on temp)
We now have what it takes to silver a mirror. Ill give a quick over view of the
steps, then Ill detail each step afterwards.
It will take a day to make our sensitizing solution, so plan ahead.
We will mix our Silvering and Sugar Solutions the day we silver.
We will Wash, and prepare our mirror.
We will put a damn of clear packing tape around our mirror
We will combine the two silvering solutions and pour them on our mirror
We will wait 5 minutes, then dump the solution down the drain
We will do our best to remove the remaining green gunk from the
silvered mirror without scratching it
We will allow our mirror to air dry and see if it needs burnishing.
We will admire our mirror, or think it looks like crap and try again!
First thing we have to do, is define how we will clean our glassware here after
called the Mason jar. Wash the Mason jar with warm water and dish soap; use a
green scrub pad and a plastic serving spoon or stick to get all the way down to
the bottom. Rinse with lots of tap water, then do 3 final rinses with distilled
water. Dont try and eat from the spoon again, it probably wont cause harm,
but
Creating the Sensitizing Solution
(Helps the silver form uniformly on the glass, and adhere better)
Take a clean Mason Jar, add 100ml water (when I say water I mean Distilled
water, and it can usually be +/- 100ml with out a problem!) Cut off a 5 gram
piece of plumbers pipe solder and drop it in the mason jar. Add 50 ml of
Muratic acid to the contents of the mason jar, swirl carefully. Nothing exciting
happens, but you should notice bubbles forming on the metal pipe solder, these
of bubbles of hydrogen, so no smoking! OK, I did, but Im probably somewhat
demented.
Allow this to do its thing overnight, preferably in the Garage with the door
cracked open, a window open, and a fan blowing. It cant hurt to give it a swirl
every now and then.
Its now the next day, Check out the mason jar, it should have some of the solder
left in it, and black granular junk in the bottom. IF there is only black stuff, we
either added too much muratic acid, or not enough solder. No problem, add
another chunk of solder and give it nother day. Check it again, There must be
some solder left in there, it should look like a chewed on stick or a black rusty
nail and the bubbles should have stopped forming.

Now, add the bottle of Rubbing alcohol, or IPA to the contents of this mason jar,
swirl. Put a lid on it, but leave it loose, just incase its still producing gas, and
label the Jar Stannous Chloride/Sensitzer and set aside. This stuff is relatively
safe so long as you dont drink it!
Creating the Silver Solutions
(Create and discard within 12hrs!)
(This is for an 8 inch mirror done face up, chemical weights can be scaled for
different sized mirrors, just make sure you use the surface area of your mirror,
and not its diameter!)
Grab a clean mason jar and add 200ml water. Put a paper cup on the scale and
weigh out 9 grams of silver nitrate, add this to the Mason Jar and swirl it around
till the crystals are gone. Rinse and Discard the paper cup and Label the Mason
Jar AgNO3 / Silver Nitrate and set aside. (By the way, this stuff will stain the
hell out of anything besides glass!)
Grab a second clean Mason Jar and add 200ml water. (You damn well better be
wearing your safety gear by now!) Put a paper cup on the scale and weigh out 16
grams of Sodium Hydroxide, add this to the second Mason jar slowly, swirl till
it clears. Rinse and discard the paper cup, and label the jar NaOH/Sodium
Hydroxide and set aside.
Now its time for the first bit of Visible Magic
Slowly pour the contents of the Mason jar labeled Sodium Hydroxide into the
Jar labeled Silver Nitrate. WOW! Brown stuff (Silver Oxide), which is not
soluble in water and precipitates out. Too Freaking cool, but it only gets better!
Set aside the empty Mason jar labeled Sodium Hydroxide and give the Silver
nitrate jar a few minutes for the brown crude to settle to the bottom. After about
5 minutes the Silver Nitrate bottle should look like chocolate milk with brown
clay in the bottom.
Now its time to wash the brown stuff, were going to do this by decanting the
chocolate milk looking stuff into the empty Sodium Hydroxide Mason Jar. The
goal here is to SLOWLY pour off the brown liquid, and keep the Brown Solid
stuff. Its not important to get rid of all the Brown liquid, but it would be nice.
Its more important not to waste to much of the brown silver oxide mud we
want to keep as much of that as possible in the Silver Nitrate mason Jar.
So here we go, we pick up the Silver Nitrate bottle gently, so as not to agitate it
too much, and slowly pour the brown liquid into the empty Sodium Hydroxide
mason Jar. Now add 200 or so ml of water to the remaining brown mud, swirl
and allow the brown stuff to settle again. Again decant the liquid, saving the
solid brown crud.
We now have a Mason jar with brown crud in the bottom and its labeled Silver
Nitrate, which it no longer is, its Silver Oxide, but it wont stay that way for long.
Discard the brown liquid in the Sodium Hydroxide mason jar and set aside, you
hopefully wont need to use it again
Now its time for the second bit of Magic. You may want to open a window, or
turn on your Fume hood, or do this outside. It smells like ammonia, because it
is
Grab the Clear bottle of Ammonia (ammonium hydroxide), Slowly pour 100ml
or so into the mason jar with the brown mud and gently swirl. You may not
notice it at first, but the Ammonia water is eating the brown silver oxide. The
goal here is to continue adding Ammonia until MOST, but not all of the brown
crude is gone. This is the most critical step of the whole process! If you add the
least bit too much ammonia, it wont work. Its better to have a bunch of brown
crude left in the bottom, than none at all!
OK, so slowly continue adding ammonia water to the Silver Nitrate Mason jar.
When you have what looks like a table spoon of Brown crude leftover. STOP!
Keep swirling the jar every now and then, and let it set for 10 minutes. Come
back and look, is there still brown stuff in the bottom? IF not, click here and Ill
tell you how to fix it. If there is, you have to be the judge. Is there an excess
amount of brown crude? Do you want to try and add a little more Ammonia?
This is a judgment call. Leftover brown crude is wasteful, but much more
preferred than failure!
Congratulations, you have just made Tollens reagent OR Ag(NH3)2OH. It
should be a clear liquid, with an ammonia smell (Do NOT stick your nose in
there and smell it!) and some hunks of brown stuff in the bottom. Set this aside,
its time to make the Reducer, or sugar, solution.
Grab a third Clean Mason Jar and add 150ml of water. Place a paper cup on you
scale and weigh out 7g of Fructose (or Dextrose) and add this to the Mason jar
and swirl till dissolved. Label the Jar Reducer and set aside. Youre almost
ready to silver!
Cleaning the Mirror, sensitizing, and prep
Now its time to play with Nitric Acid, you damn well better be wearing your
protective gear!

Place your mirror face up in a plastic sink or container its helpful to place three
old 2 liter plastic LIDS under the mirror as feet, so its easier to work with. I
actually did this in a Ceramic Kitchen sink, but I would not do it in a stainless
steel sink.
Fill your Spray bottle with Distilled water. Get your Sensitizer solution, Nitric
acid, dish soap, cotton balls, packing tape and some scissors handy. Make sure
you have some good ventilation.
If your mirror is coated, no worries, its about to come off!
With mirror face up, wet the surface by spraying a mist of water on it, grab 3 or
4 cotton balls, and CAREFULLY wet them with nitric acid. Take a deep breath
and hold it, then Gently swab the surface of your mirror, its going to give off
white smoky fumes, try not to breath this stuff! Keep swabbing till your out of
air, the coating is gone, or the nitric is not working anymore. Rinse with
distilled water and repeat one more time.
You have a fairly clean mirror, but lets wash it with some dish soap and cotton
balls, Rinse it, Wash it with dish soap again, rinse it, then lets swab it with some
more nitric acid and Rinse the hell out of it.
You now have a VERY clean mirror, but dont let the face dry out. I dont
know WHY your not supposed let it dry, but every text Ive read said so, So Ill
say it too
Take some more cotton balls and wet them with some sensitizer solution, then
gently swab the mirror trying not to get any on the sides, nor too much on the
bevel, and Rinse the hell out of your mirror again with water.
Now comes probably the most difficult thing to get right, putting on the packing
tape dam. Heres a hint, Glance over at the 2 mason Jars containing the
Silvering solution and Reducer solution. Add up how much you have, Your
damn HAS to hold that and have enough room not to spill overboard while
rocking the mirror!
Take off your gloves, keep an eye on the mirror surface, dont let it dry. Put the
mirror; face up, on a flat surface covered in paper towels or plastic, preferably
with some feet under the mirror. Grab some paper towels and dry the edge of
the mirror, but keep the surface wet. Now, grab the clear packing tape and
stretch out 2 feet or so holding the loose end in one hand and the roll in the
other, Carefully, starting at the back of the mirror and the center of the
outstretched tape, wrap the tape around the mirror, keeping several inches of
tape above the mirror!. Snip off enough to give you several inches of overlap,
then press the tape firmly against the edge of the mirror, making sure your dont
have any wrinkles in it.
Add the same amount of distilled water as you have Silvering and reducing
solution to your mirror surface and dam. Any Leaks? A drip every now and
then is ok, but a constant drip, or stream is going to make an incredible mess!
OK Take a break, Your almost ready to do this!
The Silvering
Lets do a mental rehearsal of what were about to do.
We need a sink close by, next to the sink we need some cotton balls soaking in
dish of water, the jug of distilled water (with the lid removed!), the Spray gun
full of water, and some scissors handy.
Next to the mirror, we need the Jar of Silvering solution, The Jar of Reducer,
and a Stop watch or Clock.
Real quick, look at the silvering solution, is there still brown chunks in the
bottom? If not you added too much ammonia and will need to fix it before
going any further (click here). Your mirror will be fine for a few minutes as
long as its covered in water. Other wise its time to do the magic
At this point, my hearts beating pretty quickly, what were about to do is one of
the coolest things Ive ever done! SO here we go!!!!!
Put your Gloves back on! Pick up the mirror, swirl the distilled water around
and pour it down the sink. Return the mirror. Gently pick up the Jar of Silver
Solution so as not to agitate the brown crude (there is still some brown crude in
it, right?) Quickly, but carefully pour the contents of the Silvering solution into
the jar of reducer solution (fructose) trying to leave the brown crude behind. Set
down the empty Jar and pick up the rapidly turning Yellow/blue/green/dark
green jar of solution. Give it a quick swirl and quickly, but carefully, pour it on
your mirror. Set the jar down and start the clock for 5 minutes. Gently rock the
mirror full of solution constantly. Your heart will be racing! Now this is
FUN!!!
After 30 to 60 seconds, look where the tape meets the glass, you should see
silver forming! Keep on rocking!
After 3 minutes or so, youll see Silver floating around on the surface, Oh yea,
this is cool!
At the 4 Minute Mark, Turn the cold water on in the sink.
At the 5 Minute mark, pick up the Mirror, and pour the contents down the drain.
The mirror will be coated in Green Gunk and you wont see the silver coat, so
dont worry. Hold the mirror in one hand and pick up the jug of distilled water
with the other, Add a bunch of water to the mirror and Swirl, then dump.
Heres the Magic moment, Can you see silver?
Anyway, add more water, swirl and rinse. Then use the squirt bottle to get as
much off as you can. Then add more water and gently add the cotton balls.
Swirl the cotton balls around to get the last remaining gunk off. Then pick up
the scissors and cut the tape at an angle. Grab the tape and gently pull it DOWN
and AWAY from the mirror, we dont want the tape to pull the silver coat off!
Spray the mirror down with more distilled water. Hows the silver coat look?
Any Pits? Look at the filiment of a light bulb thru the mirror, how thick is the
coat? Is it uniform?
Whatever you do, DONT TOUCH THE SILVER COAT WITH ANYTING,
until it dries for several hours! You will want to, but dont!
Set the Mirror on edge, leaning against a wall, on top of some paper towels and
allow to air dry. In the meantime Clean up the mess we made, wash your Mason
jars, and put everything away.
OK, your mirror is dry, look at it, if it looks fairly good, Id leave it the hell
alone. However if you can see a white haze on it you may need to burnish it. If
so, here how to do that.
Cut of a piece of chamois cloth, and place a few cotton balls in it and wrap it up
so you have a smooth side. vigorously apply some red rouge with a tooth brush
to the chamois. Now comes the hard part.
Gently, with just the weight of the cloth, rub the surface of the mirror with
small, slow circular strokes. Count to 5 while you do this, when you get to 5
STOP, use the tooth brush and scrub the chamois to get any gray/green stuff off.
Even if you dont see any, still do it, otherwise your going to put a sleek on the
silver coat. Keep doing this across the mirror. While you scrub the chamois
with the toothbrush, look at the mirror surface and see how your progressing.
While your burnishing, never look away from the spot your working on, the
minute you look away, your going to pick up a bit of garbage and start
scratching the silver coat! Murphys law in action!

Wow, Were done! If everything went perfectly, you have a perfect mirror
coating. Since things never go perfect you probably have a few pits, some
sleeks or scratches and maybe even some missing spots. If they dont add up to
more than a quarter sized spot, I would leave it alone!
Failure modes
1. The silver coat is almost non-existent, or very thin and wipes off easily
with your finger.
a. You added too much ammonia
b. You forgot to count the weight of the paper cup when you
measured out your chemicals
c. Its too cold, and you need to leave the mirror in the solution
longer.
2. Lots of Pits, or missing spots
a. Mirror was insufficiently cleaned
b. The mirror was not rinsed sufficiently
c. You touched the mirror after cleaning and got something on it
d. Contamination in your water or glassware
e. Air has lots of dust in it
f. Insufficient rinsing
g. Not enough, or Too Much Sensitizer
3. Mirror is hazy or white and wont burnish out
a. Its too hot
b. Mirror left in silver bath too long

I guess thats it, let me know how it works out for you, and I wish you the best!