Since it’s important to use First Surface mirrors with projectors (which eliminates ghosting type effects), I thought I would post this link I found for a DIY first surface mirror. I haven’t tried myself, but I have no reason to doubt this would work well.

First surface mirrors are a lot more expensive than normal mirrors. Apparently you can buy a normal mirror and use wood/aluminum stripper to strip away a layer which will result in a first surface mirror. Check out the link here: http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=21137 If this works well, I would imagine you could save at least half the cost of a real first surface mirror (especially if it’s large).

wow!
i’m going to try this first thing tmw morning, it sounds too good to be true in a way.

The guys from lumenlabs are used to working with mirrors, so I would imagine when they say they’re getting good results that it should be hopeful for us.

Let us know how it goes nima. I’d try it myself, but I’m not far enough along in the building process yet. I will most likely be doing this too eventually.

Here’s a post from another website about this:

TIP # 3 - FRONT SURFACE MIRROR: To create a front surface mirror, coat one surface of your mirror with a paint remover/stripper that has the key ingredient Methylene Chloride in it.  In my experience, paint thinner or mineral spirits lacking that ingredient do not work.  It might be best to do the next steps in a large glass jar with a lid that screws on tightly.  This will prevent the odor from pervading your place of abode, protect your health (you do not want to inhale this stuff), and help you stay married a little longer.  I used a glass jar with a plastic lid and kept it outside for good measure.  A short soaking in the stripper should loosen any plastic backing enough to allow you to pry it off without damaging the mirror.  Then place the mirror face down in the jar, pour a liberal amount of stripper over the back of the mirror and allow it to soak, covered in the stuff, for 8 hours.  After soaking, carefullly take the mirror out and run a steady, forceful stream of warm water over it to remove the stripper and facing.  Blot dry with cotton balls.  Take care not to scratch the mirror.

yeah there are different types of the stripper: aerosol spray and as a liquid form that you can purchase by the gallon.  coincidentally, i just returned from the shop and just applied my first test-spray.

i wore a mask with dishwasher gloves as precautionary measures. The can says it is not caustic but it still contains carcinogenic agents.

btw: front surface mirrors not only are good to prevent ghosting but also don’t cause distortion due to refraction from the glass

i’ll post results within the hour after the i let the spray do its thang

so it works; stripping the coating off is dead simple but cleaning the front-surface mirror is tricky.

lay mirror glass side down and apply a coating on the grey coating.  After about 10-15 minutes, the coating will start to “bubble”. basically, the coating is separating from the glass. Once the entire surface is bubbled up, you just peel it off. Then there is an orange-tint coating… sorta looks like an orange mirror. Spray the mirror again and wait 15 minutes.  Then rinse off this coating or wipe it off, and you will have a FS mirror.  my mirrors are from ikea.

Next step is to clean the mirror (which i havent done yet).  online literature says to use distilled water diluted with mild soap, or to use warm water etc… i’m gonna have to read up on it more before polishing it off.

im apprehensive to use brasso or other polishers

-n

Sounds good nima! Let us know how it goes after cleaning. From the places I read, I also saw to use distilled water. If you can post the type of stripper and size of mirror you used, that would be great also.

Is a first surface mirror, just a mirror with the backside stripped off? (essentially a double sided mirror?)

well its doublesided: one side is the regular side with glass, the back has no coating and is a FS

@NIMA,

at last , did your DIY FS mirror was it good enough for permanent use ?

Yeah, how did it go?

i tried myself with 2 mirrors , it was a pain and a beautiful failure
the reflecting coating is so thin that you easily sctratch it at some point ...

Sounds like the failure rate is quite high - I completely messed mine up when I had a go too!

I think i’ll just buy one, it’ll save me the hassle of wasting another $10 on a new mirror/can of paint stripper..

the one I bought off of ebay that’s used for optometry does not eliminate my ghosting.  I did notice an improvement with blob clarity and overall performance of my table.  BUT the ghosting/double image is still there.