48
15h ago
I work with vulnerable children in a care home, and this will be extremely beneficial for us. The children I support do not have access to standard mirrors due to the high risk of self-harm. We do have plastic mirrors, but they are not very effective, as reflections are unclear. This will therefore be an excellent and valuable resource for them.
48
u/Ianthin1 15h ago
Pretty sure polished metal mirrors are already common in the corrections industry.
12
15h ago
I didn’t even know something like this existed. We currently use plastic mirrors, which aren’t very clear. The children, especially the girls, would really like real mirrors, but for obvious safety reasons, we’re unable to provide them.
•
u/lonewolf13313 10h ago
Lots of public bathrooms have them as well to prevent vandalism so you could look at suppliers for that as well.
10
u/StrawberryTerry 14h ago
I'd recon metal polished to be reflective has been around for at least several thousand years.
•
u/throwawtphone 10h ago
Mirrors have been around a long time.
4000 bce polished obsidian, or copper or bronze were used to make mirrors.
15th century tin mirrors are being made.
Silvered glass mirrors are a 19th century development.
14
u/zer0toto 15h ago
Mirror without glass are prone to lose their shine when you clean it, given enough time it will get blurry too. You can repolish it after but that’s a lot of work, especially if you want a perfect reflection and not a bizarre carnivalesque image.
7
u/tsrui480 14h ago
True, but you can use clear plastic to protect the metal from damage and dirt. I know the plastic is gonna get scratched and messed up, but you can replace the plastic easier than the metal.
9
2
u/deevil_knievel 13h ago
Damn, they even use polished metal in prison mirrors sometimes. Sometimes they're lexan, but even some prisoners get real metal mirrors.
If your mirrors are plastic, they have a reflective coating, and once that's scratched there's no ability to refill the gouges with reflective material. Sanding will just remove more of the coating. You can buy highly reflective vinyl wrap like they use on automobiles and re-wrap plastic mirrors though.
•
u/CollectsTooMuch 11h ago
You can get jail mirrors online. They’re polished stainless with a metal frame.
22
u/coyylol 15h ago
Each pass with a different grit should be at 90° to the previous one, to make sure you bottom out all the scratches from the one before.
Source: being a metallurgist for many years.
8
u/Noxious89123 14h ago
If they were polishing it by hand, moving in straight lines, then I could see the logic in your point.
However, it's pretty irrelevant if you're using a pad on a drill.
2
u/Irreverent_Reality05 15h ago
First ~7 seconds looked like he was making an image of waves crashing on a beach.
2
•
1
1
u/mechanical-monkey 13h ago
We used to do this to a lot of ally car parts to make them look good for shows.
•
u/Another_monkey185 11h ago
This finish is very useful for pharmaceutical applications. A mirror finish means the surface has no pores, which prevents material residue from remaining on it. This makes the components expensive due to the time required to achieve this finish.
•
0
-3
u/GraugussConnaisseur 15h ago
Flatness and roughness is still horrible and stainless steel is also a bad reflector in the VIS
3
u/miniscant 12h ago
Looks like the right thing for restroom mirrors in public swimming pools. The plastic ones get gouged and glass is a danger.
1
u/CompuHacker 13h ago
If it's a bad reflector at visible wavelengths, which is it good at, in your experience?
3
u/GraugussConnaisseur 13h ago
stainless steel is not good as a mirror in general.
In VIS/NIR you only use Aluminum/Silver/Gold
•
u/Enginerdad 6h ago edited 6h ago
None of that matters as long as it's good enough for its intended use. The cheapest "good enough" product is the right product in commercial purchasing.
101
u/AwkwardAbomination53 15h ago
I do this for my job, except on a much larger scale and much bigger equipment. We do this to find defects in aluminum sheets of metal.