How to cut a mirror at home?

In the interior of the room, mirrors play a special role: they expand the space and make the room more refined. To create a real work of art yourself, you need to know how to cut a mirror at home. If you follow certain rules, then it turns out not so difficult and dangerous, as it may seem at first.

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Technique is safe when cutting mirrors

Before you cut a mirror at home, you need to take care of your own safety:

• In order not to injure your hands and not to cut yourself against the sharp edges of the mirror, prepare tight cloth gloves. Additionally, you can paste on the fingers of the strip of the patch.
• Eyes also require protection. For this purpose, use bicycle, construction or any other protective goggles.

Important! Before cutting the mirror for the first time with a glass cutter, it is necessary to practice on small glass elements, and after gaining at least some experience, start the responsible part of the work.

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How to use a glass cutter?

Cutters are different, but there are two main types:

• Roller glass cutter.
• Diamond glass cutter.

Important! The diamond tool is more precise and allows you to make the work faster and better. However, the roller will cost less, so choose the device that you can afford. Be sure to take into account the estimated amount of work.

General rules for use:

• A glass cutter is very important to keep correctly - at right angles, however a slight deviation is still allowed( in this case, the sharp angle will be working).
• The tool must be fixed with the thumb and middle finger and pressed down with the forefinger.

Important! The position of the glass cutter can not be changed. The cutting should be done in one quick motion, because repeated actions will damage the mirror.

• The pressing force must be uniform, except for the edges: for 5 mm to the edge, the load should be reduced to prevent the tool from slipping and chipping.

Important! Cutting should be strictly from the far edge towards you.

• A thin white cut indicates that the roller could not penetrate the mirror body to the required depth. A good cut has a dark color( diamond does not touch it, since it leaves a thin light strip).

Important! Do not try to deepen the unsuccessful incision - better retreat a couple of millimeters and produce a new one.

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Materials and tools required

Before you start cutting the mirror yourself, make sure that you have prepared all of the following tools and materials:

• Glass Cutter;
• Mirror;
• Long, thick ruler( 8-10 mm);
• Smooth, stable table( suitable for chipboard);
• Small hammer;
• Fine sandpaper;
• Cloth( the usual sheet will do);
• Combination pliers with rubber gaskets;
• Capacity with water;
• Alcohol, soda;
• Roulette;
• Rag;
• "Glass", "Tecnolux" or other suitable pencil;
• Patterns from plastic or plywood - will be needed only if curvilinear drawing is supposed.

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Mirror cutting sequence

To correctly cut mirrors at home, you must strictly follow this algorithm:

• Prepare the workstation and place the mirror face up on it.
• Under the mirror, lay some soft cloth that can help to avoid damage to the surface when pressing.
• Bring the mirror in order - first clean it with soda solution, and then treat the mirror surface with alcohol.

Important! This must be done, since traces of spots and dust can cause the displacement of the cutting line and the glass cutter can go sideways.

• Mark the markings. Here there is one subtlety: the line of marking must necessarily correspond to the line of the glass cutter, that is, go a couple of millimeters from the future cut line.
• After marking, attach a ruler to it. To control the movement of the glass cutter and avoid the displacement of the cutting part, you can slightly raise the ruler. The easiest way to do this is by attaching erasers to its ends.
• Check the tool. For an inexperienced carver, only an ideally sharp glass cutter will work, otherwise the process of work will take a lot of time, or even fail.
• Proceed directly to the cutting process. After making the cut, arrange the mirror so that it coincides with the edge of the table and even a little bit behind it protrudes.
• Separate the cut piece from the mirror. To do this, gently press it to the table and break off the cut piece with a sharp movement down.

Important! If you can not do it with your hands, take a small hammer and lightly tap from the bottom along the cutting line, starting from the far end. If there is a need, resort to the help of pliers with rubber pads.

• Carefully cut the cut with fine sandpaper.

Mirror is ready! Now fasten it in the frame and hang it on the wall.

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Figured cutting

How to cut a mirror correctly at home, if you want it to be round or oval? It is quite difficult to make figural cutting with a conventional glass cutter. To solve such problems, they resort to special glass cutters or designs from several tools. Typically, a similar system consists of a glass cutter, a suction cup and a scale to determine the desired degree.

If you can not get such a tool, you can use an ordinary diamond or roller cutter. In this case, the cutting process is carried out in the same way as in the above case, but using the patterns.

Important! The main difficulty is that the cut is extremely difficult not to damage when breaking, so it is divided into several fragments, and then separated in turn.

In this way, you can create a beautiful, unique and useful decor element in the form of a wonderful mirror.

Now you are ready to cut the mirror at home. Observe the precautionary measures, in advance, think over the design of the element you need, clearly make patterns, and be sure to practice on unnecessary pieces of material. Then the result of the work done will be as you expected, although the time will take a little longer.