Is it worth trying to cut mirror glass for a rearview mirror?

[rcx132]

I'm trying to fix the original mirror on my old jeep. I've restored the body, blasted and repainted it and the spring has been re-plated. The glass isn't too bad but I wouldn't mind trying to cut new glass for it. It's 2mm thick. Do you think a regular glass scoring tool would be able to cut curved glass so that's so thin? Or another technique?

Thank you.

 

[colnerov]

Rear view mirrors aren't usually flat so will give an unusual view.

 

[jsf55]

There made of polycarb now so a replacement should be able to be trimmed down ?

 

[tom2207]

buy a cheap mirror of the plastic type and start grinding , lots of mirror glasses are still glass , for the heating element to work well , but plenty are plastic , or call into a scrapyard and find a replacement that way , my 107 is on a freelander 2 rear view , and its not suffered the usual condensation issues and it dips too.

 

[DAPPH]

Stick on plastic replacements from Halfords will save you a lot of grief ( if they still sell them ).

 

[Misterg]

Do you think a regular glass scoring tool would be able to cut curved glass so that's so thin?

If you mean a wheel, then yes - they'll work down to about 0.5mm thick. It was probably how the mirror was originally cut.

However... you need a good wheel and good technique (or a machine). I think the chances of getting a good result on a one-off, without quite a bit of practice, are quite slim (but you never know!)

As above, though, the mirror may not be flat.

 

[Mick Annick]

I used to go to a mirror / glass shop for mine for the Morgan, though my son is making me one at the moment - he makes mirror balls for a living.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Have you considered getting the original resilvered ?

 

[rcx132]

Thanks all. The mirror is flat... as it's forty years old. I did fit plastic glass which I made on my laser cutter, but plastic flexes and the picture was no good. I already have a later model mirror fitted in the car which works but I wanted to keep the car original.

I'll probably just fit the old imperfect glass then.

 

[dobbslc]

What car is it?

 

[steveo3002]

local glass place may well do it for pennys , ours is very cheap vs trying to diy it

 

[Mick Annick]

local glass place may well do it for pennys , ours is very cheap vs trying to diy it

Last one I bought in Birmingham, cut to size, was £3.00!

 

[rcx132]

What car is it?

1980s Suzuki SJ, the little old original Suzuki jeeps. A strange car that I happen to really like

 

[Wedg1e]

Funny this should come up... when I bought my salvage ST1300 last Feb, both of the mirrors were broken (the previous owner got knocked into oncoming traffic by a p!key pickup, bounced off a car and hit a fence). To get it MOT'd I borrowed the mirrors from my old ST and then went looking for replacement glass. Which it turns out you can't buy; Honda only ever supplied the complete mirrors (at £).
I found an Ebay seller doing replacement glass but the one I bought was a good few millimetres smaller all round (looked naff) and despite using strong sticky stuff to hold it into the shell, it fell out one day as I jolted the bike onto its centrestand. My guess is it was intended to be stuck over a cracked glass, where mine was missing altogether. I ended up buying a second-hand pair of mirrors.
Fast-forward till just before xmas and I decided to revisit this: I found an Ebay seller ('plastercarver') flogging mirror tiles of 2mm thickness (actually he was wrong, when they arrived they were 2.5mm) and another place ('gohardware') selling the Toyo glass cutters. Total investment about £35 (I went for a TC-10).
I ordered two tiles but the guy included a third free, which had a few marks, I thought I'd use that for practice.

I used one of the broken mirrors as a template, drew round it with a fine-tip marker on a well-polished mirror tile and kept up a good pressure on the cutter... and it worked! That first break was nerve-wracking...

I expected to write off at least one tile just practising but got a useable mirror on the first try. Finished the edge with an Aldi diamond sharpening block, about the only time I've ever used it.

The only slight issue is that the Honda shell is intended to wrap around the glass edge, which it doesn't want to do on the thicker glass, so I might remove material from the webs in the shell and see if the glass will sit a bit better - you can see a few nicks in the edge which would be hidden if it was a better fit.

 

[Wedg1e]

1980s Suzuki SJ, the little old original Suzuki jeeps. A strange car that I happen to really like

My mate had one that he kept at his place on Malta... used it to lug scuba gear about (he's a diving instructor).
First it was rammed in a hit and run and then as soon as he'd sorted the damage it was stolen. You'd think it would soon turn up on a relatively small island, but it's only a 50 mile ferry ride to the rest of Europe...

 

[graffian]

Funny this should come up... when I bought my salvage ST1300 last Feb, both of the mirrors were broken (the previous owner got knocked into oncoming traffic by a p!key pickup, bounced off a car and hit a fence). To get it MOT'd I borrowed the mirrors from my old ST and then went looking for replacement glass. Which it turns out you can't buy; Honda only ever supplied the complete mirrors (at £).
I found an Ebay seller doing replacement glass but the one I bought was a good few millimetres smaller all round (looked naff) and despite using strong sticky stuff to hold it into the shell, it fell out one day as I jolted the bike onto its centrestand. My guess is it was intended to be stuck over a cracked glass, where mine was missing altogether. I ended up buying a second-hand pair of mirrors.
Fast-forward till just before xmas and I decided to revisit this: I found an Ebay seller ('plastercarver') flogging mirror tiles of 2mm thickness (actually he was wrong, when they arrived they were 2.5mm) and another place ('gohardware') selling the Toyo glass cutters. Total investment about £35 (I went for a TC-10).
I ordered two tiles but the guy included a third free, which had a few marks, I thought I'd use that for practice.

View attachment 432423

I used one of the broken mirrors as a template, drew round it with a fine-tip marker on a well-polished mirror tile and kept up a good pressure on the cutter... and it worked! That first break was nerve-wracking...

View attachment 432420

I expected to write off at least one tile just practising but got a useable mirror on the first try. Finished the edge with an Aldi diamond sharpening block, about the only time I've ever used it.

 

[rcx132]

Last one I bought in Birmingham, cut to size, was £3.00!

Funny this should come up... when I bought my salvage ST1300 last Feb, both of the mirrors were broken (the previous owner got knocked into oncoming traffic by a p!key pickup, bounced off a car and hit a fence). To get it MOT'd I borrowed the mirrors from my old ST and then went looking for replacement glass. Which it turns out you can't buy; Honda only ever supplied the complete mirrors (at £).
I found an Ebay seller doing replacement glass but the one I bought was a good few millimetres smaller all round (looked naff) and despite using strong sticky stuff to hold it into the shell, it fell out one day as I jolted the bike onto its centrestand. My guess is it was intended to be stuck over a cracked glass, where mine was missing altogether. I ended up buying a second-hand pair of mirrors.
Fast-forward till just before xmas and I decided to revisit this: I found an Ebay seller ('plastercarver') flogging mirror tiles of 2mm thickness (actually he was wrong, when they arrived they were 2.5mm) and another place ('gohardware') selling the Toyo glass cutters. Total investment about £35 (I went for a TC-10).
I ordered two tiles but the guy included a third free, which had a few marks, I thought I'd use that for practice.

View attachment 432423

I used one of the broken mirrors as a template, drew round it with a fine-tip marker on a well-polished mirror tile and kept up a good pressure on the cutter... and it worked! That first break was nerve-wracking...

View attachment 432420

I expected to write off at least one tile just practising but got a useable mirror on the first try. Finished the edge with an Aldi diamond sharpening block, about the only time I've ever used it.

View attachment 432421

The only slight issue is that the Honda shell is intended to wrap around the glass edge, which it doesn't want to do on the thicker glass, so I might remove material from the webs in the shell and see if the glass will sit a bit better - you can see a few nicks in the edge which would be hidden if it was a better fit.

View attachment 432422

Thanks! I may just give it a go after all. I feel a bit weird having gone to all the length to restore the car and original mirror and then put in damaged glass.

 

[Wedg1e]

Thanks! I may just give it a go after all. I feel a bit weird having gone to all the length to restore the car and original mirror and then put in damaged glass.

Back in the late 80s, around the time I started riding motorcycles, my brother took me to meet a guy he knew from work (bro was also a biker at the time).
Bear in mind that to unemployed, divorced and skint me, a bike was just cheap transport, I didn't know or care about the history of them.
This guy's garage was fitted out on three sides by roller tool cabinets and on a bike lift in the middle, under a cover, was some old red bike. He was telling us about how he'd had to get a machine shop to make him some new brake discs as originals weren't to be found anywhere, and then he showed us the seat that he'd had re-covered in red leather with lots of stitching.
I remarked that it seemed a lot of expense to go to, to keep some old bike on the road.
He looked at me like I'd just poo'd on his carpet and whipped off the cover, as though revealing the holy grail.
Apparently there were only a handful of this particular bike made in the 1960s and this one had a racing pedigree.
I'd never heard of MV Agusta
Never seen him or the bike since, I'm guessing he told my brother to never let me darken his door again

 

[rcx132]

Back in the late 80s, around the time I started riding motorcycles, my brother took me to meet a guy he knew from work (bro was also a biker at the time).
Bear in mind that to unemployed, divorced and skint me, a bike was just cheap transport, I didn't know or care about the history of them.
This guy's garage was fitted out on three sides by roller tool cabinets and on a bike lift in the middle, under a cover, was some old red bike. He was telling us about how he'd had to get a machine shop to make him some new brake discs as originals weren't to be found anywhere, and then he showed us the seat that he'd had re-covered in red leather with lots of stitching.
I remarked that it seemed a lot of expense to go to, to keep some old bike on the road.
He looked at me like I'd just poo'd on his carpet and whipped off the cover, as though revealing the holy grail.
Apparently there were only a handful of this particular bike made in the 1960s and this one had a racing pedigree.
I'd never heard of MV Agusta
Never seen him or the bike since, I'm guessing he told my brother to never let me darken his door again

Who knows what cars will become classics. The old Suzuki's were seen as a poor man's jeep and most were off roaded to death. But now they're rare the price has gone right up. Mine was a genuine barn find, some farmer used it for hunts, then one day he connected the battery the wrong way round burning out the ignition and, unable to fix it, left it in a barn for ten years until I spotted it. I restored it over the pandemic.

 

[Pete.]

I cut mirror glasses for my bike from cheap replacement ones from the motor factor. I cut them with a normal glass cutter and grind the edges on my diamond lapper. Putting the plastic housing in very hot water makes it expand a lot to ease fitment.