Silvering test

I've silvered a couple of test objects.  They work as parabolic mirrors, although the main goal here was to improve my silvering technique.  The results are good enough that I think I'm ready to move on to fabricating a hand mirror.

Note: the horizontal lines on the object below were part of the computer model.  They made it work poorly as a burning mirror but they were good guide lines to test different sanding techniques.

The products below are what I used to silver the test objects.  Chrome spray paint on white primer.  They were cheap and worked very well.  The result is somewhat smoother than the underlying substrate (to a small extent it fills in surface imperfections).  Problem: it's certainly very shiny but it's not a mirrored surface.  It's good enough for a hand-mirror scale.  Inefficient but minimally functional.

Thoughts on silvering:

- 3D printing: the layers should be as thin as possible.  The thicker-layered model was quite a bit rougher.

- sanding does help a bit

- this paint sets an upper limit on how efficient a mirror I can make.  The surface is visibly a little bit textured even where the substrate has been sanded smooth.I don't need an optical quality mirror but a different silvering technique may be needed for a mirror larger than handheld size.  This might just be far too inefficient.