A new product to add to your line-up

[David Harvey]

Here's a product I do that is quite easy, really comes out looking great and I would like to share it here in case you would like to add it to your product lineup.

I picked up some of the beveled 12" sqr. mirror tiles from Home Depot, item # P1212-NTB (made by STANLEY). You get 10 to a box for around $20.00. They also sell the tiles without the bevel, which would work great for large muriels...I experimented with engraving them and found that they engrave beautifully!

For the image preperation, I use Paint Shop Pro X to tone the image and Andromeda 'EtchTone' effects. I found this to work the best over halftones or stucki, etc. I mirror the image horizontally and engrave the back. After the engraving and a cleanup (produces a lot of dust), I spray the back with a glossy black paint.

After drying, we apply a felt backing to finish it up. The mirrors can be mounted in a picture frame or they can stand alone like in the picture.

It's hard to take a decent photo of a mirror (sorry...the actual mirror engraving looks much better than what the pictures show). I've included a closeup of it so you can get a better idea of the detail. The mirror seems to support hi-res engraving very well (600 dpi in this case).

I retail these for $79.95 and will discount down to $59.95. People seem to like them, as they are selling, even our local Fire Dept. bought 2 with their patch engraved on them.

I pass this on to the creek because this is an easy and unique product that anyone with a laser can do, it is low cost, it has a real classy look to it and I bet you will sell some. Place one of these next to a wooden plaque that's been engraved, you can almost rest assured the customer is going to go for the mirror.

One day, when I get some free time, I want to try a muriel using the non beveled tiles. It would have to be awesome!

Anyway, enjoy it and I hope it proves beneficial to others, and if anyone get's around to trying this, I hope you'll post some results.

[David Harvey]

Tim,
Yes, I know doing mirrors is not new and a lot on here have shown their efforts. It was just that this mirror was so cheap and easy to produce that enticed me to share it.

Agreed, you do have to test the mirrors...things can change. I've gone thru 5 boxes of these mirrors over the last 2 years and they have, so far, remained the same and I've had no problems.

[Dan Hintz]

That's an interesting pattern to the engraving...kinda artsy. I'd probably choose a different pattern, however, for images of faces... or crank up the size of the "crackle" to really make them artsy, like they were assembled using tiny shards of glass.

[Mike Null]

Very novel and interesting look. I think it adds value.

Thanks for posting.

[Roy Nicholson]

I'll be giving the tiles a try.


Regards

Roy N.

[Phyllis Williams]

Here's a product I do that is quite easy, really comes out looking great and I would like to share it here in case you would like to add it to your product lineup.

I picked up some of the beveled 12" sqr. mirror tiles from Home Depot, item # P1212-NTB (made by STANLEY). You get 10 to a box for around $20.00. They also sell the tiles without the bevel, which would work great for large muriels...I experimented with engraving them and found that they engrave beautifully!

For the image preperation, I use Paint Shop Pro X to tone the image and Andromeda 'EtchTone' effects. I found this to work the best over halftones or stucki, etc. I mirror the image horizontally and engrave the back. After the engraving and a cleanup (produces a lot of dust), I spray the back with a glossy black paint.

After drying, we apply a felt backing to finish it up. The mirrors can be mounted in a picture frame or they can stand alone like in the picture.

It's hard to take a decent photo of a mirror (sorry...the actual mirror engraving looks much better than what the pictures show). I've included a closeup of it so you can get a better idea of the detail. The mirror seems to support hi-res engraving very well (600 dpi in this case).

I retail these for $79.95 and will discount down to $59.95. People seem to like them, as they are selling, even our local Fire Dept. bought 2 with their patch engraved on them.

I pass this on to the creek because this is an easy and unique product that anyone with a laser can do, it is low cost, it has a real classy look to it and I bet you will sell some. Place one of these next to a wooden plaque that's been engraved, you can almost rest assured the customer is going to go for the mirror.

One day, when I get some free time, I want to try a muriel using the non beveled tiles. It would have to be awesome!

Anyway, enjoy it and I hope it proves beneficial to others, and if anyone get's around to trying this, I hope you'll post some results.

Hi David,
Those are great looking mirrors...i have done mirrors before, but never did a photo...i'm going to try that out...i have photo shop pro X and will give that effect a try...now question? What setting did you use? If you dont mine me asking

[David Harvey]

Phyllis,
Thanks...I have a 75w, so I used the following settings...

DPI: 600
Speed: 73%
Power: 81%
Engrave Dir: Bottom Up (helps to cleanup the dust on mirror from the engraving process)

It takes about 27 minutes to engrave an 11" x 11" image. Be sure to tape the mirror down as the vibration from the machine 'will' cause it to slowly creep on the bed due to the slick surface of the glass.


Good luck! Hope to see your results

[Phyllis Williams]

Phyllis,
Thanks...I have a 75w, so I used the following settings...

DPI: 600
Speed: 73%
Power: 81%
Engrave Dir: Bottom Up (helps to cleanup the dust on mirror from the engraving process)

It takes about 27 minutes to engrave an 11" x 11" image. Be sure to tape the mirror down as the vibration from the machine 'will' cause it to slowly creep on the bed due to the slick surface of the glass.


Good luck! Hope to see your results

David,
thanks for the info...
Taking mental notes of your tip about taping the mirror down...
appreciate it

[leslie blackburn]

Thanks, David. I am going to try this. Always looking for new ideas for my show floor.

[AL Ursich]

Just to mention the obvious.... Some are also doing color by breaking up the image into colors and doing one color and painting with latex and letting it dry. Laser another section and another color. They say to just "slop" the paint on as the other areas laser just fine thought the excess paint. When done paint black or apply felt.

You right, a pretty cool project... Great effect for Business Names.... Ever see the Olive Garden Mirror in the TV spots....?

AL

[Ray Uebner]

Wow great job. Thanks for the tip will have to try it. On the coloring it you must have to make a jig to make sure that the mirror is in the sam place on the next pass, or do you just paint it inside the laser. (would tie up the laser until it dried.

[Trevor Watson]

What do you have your lines per inch set at in the baby photo ?
and is smaller better sometimes harder to tell from the screen can vary alot when finally engraved..

[David Harvey]

Trevor, I had it set to 45 lpi, the maximun setting in Etchtone. The etchtone is not like a halftone pattern where you have a certain # of dots equally spaced, with each dot vaying in size based upon the underlying group of pixels for that dot.

Instead of a dot comprised of a certain # of pixels (determined by the LPI setting), this looks like a square of a repeating tile, composed of curved and straight lines drawn at varying angles and arcs, with the underlying block of image pixels governing the density of the lines/patterns in that block. Because of the complexity of the pattern, its my bet this is why 45 lpi is the max setting for this effect. The plugin does have a custom setting for the LPI, allowing you to set whatever LPI you like, but it seems that when I experimented with that some time back, the resulting image it produced was very blocky and contrasted. Didn't look good, in my opinion.
A key thing to point out about the block of lines and arcs in this effect, is that each line and arc is only 1 pixel in width, with varying amounts of fill in the voids that are created where they have crossed etc., which means that this method works well on a medium that can support a hi resolution and it needs to be engraved at a hi resolution. I used 600 DPI on these mirrors. Btw, I have tried this in wood, and most woods simply can't support 600 DPI very well.

In any event, at the 45 lpi on the image and 600 DPI for the engraving, the resulting image looks really smooth toned and your eye doesn't pickup on any definite pattern, like with a halftone at the same setting of 45 lpi would cause.

This technique is very similar to the engravings on currency, where they use a wavy line of varying line thickness to replicate the image.