Making a Tile Tool

Step 1: Making a Tile Tool

The tile tool is used for Fine grinding of the mirror blank. You can use another, possibly thinner glass blank as the tool but a Dental Stone tool is cheaper. Traditionally Plaster Of Paris has been used for this, but dental stone has some advantages. Dental Stone does not need to be sealed, it does not contain sand or other gritty material that could scratch the glass and it does not chip. Since it does not need to be sealed you may pour the stone right on top of the back of the tile mat, bonding them together without epoxy.

Step 2: First Steps

Before you can make the tool you need to rough grind (or Hog out) your blank. This is done with Silicon Carbide #80 or coarser. You will need some sort of tool for the hogging. You can use anything, an old pulley, bar bell weight but I have used an empty Dog Food can filled with dental stone.

Step 3: Making a Tile Tool

The rim of the can is what does all the work, here is the can after hogging out a 6" F/8 and a 8" F/6. It is hard to tell but about 75% of the rim on the can is gone.

Step 4: Tile Mat

You need to cut the tile mat about 1/4" smaller than the mirror. Any tiles smaller than 1/2" or so can be removed. You also want to have the tiles off center at the center of the mirror. You need extra tile so you can try more than once!

Step 5: After Hogging

Once you have cleaned up after hogging, clean everything 3 more times! I like to let things dry as well. It doesn't make a difference, just clean enough to feel that you are over doing it and then you should be OK. We are going to use the Mirror itself as a mold. Pictured is the mirror and 3" Vertical Bind as a dam.

Step 6: Setting Up

Now we take the mirror with the dam around it and put a thin coat of oil on it. Place the plastic (Garbage bag shown here) or saran wrap on the mirror. Place the tile mat on top of that centered. Then the fun job of mixing the dental stone.

Step 7: Mix and Scoop

I don't have any pictures of mixing and scooping the stone into the form. You add enough water to make the powder wet but it should stay thick, like bread dough. You should NOT be able to pour it out of your DISPOSABLE bowl. Do NOT discard any extra Dental Stone DOWN YOUR DRAIN! A detailed text only description can be found at atm/tutorials_tool.htm