backpack made out of plastic mirror

[jwpattr]

I found some plastic mirror material at my local plastics supplier and decided that it would be great to make one of these paper crafting backpacks out of the mirror material. The material is about 1/16 of an inch thick. It looks exactily like real glass mirror and comes with a thin plastc covering to keep it from getting scratched. The material not very flexible and will snap if you bend it too far. I've found that it can be heated and bent like most other plastic. However, the heat will tend to ruin the mirror effect of the area heated up. I was told by the salesman that he plastic mirror was made of a composite of three layers, a backing, a VERY thin metal/mylar layer, covered by hard clear acrylic layer. Here are some pictures of the material itself:

mirror with protective sheet peeled back

plastic_mirror.jpg (81.73 KiB) Viewed 3004 times

mirror with protective sheet peeled back

plastic_mirror.jpg (81.73 KiB) Viewed 3004 times

side of a piece of plastic mirror

plastic_mirror2.jpg (121.25 KiB) Viewed 3004 times

side of a piece of plastic mirror

plastic_mirror2.jpg (121.25 KiB) Viewed 3004 times

Front showing half of mirror covered with protective sheet and half without

plastic_mirror3.jpg (131.68 KiB) Viewed 3004 times

Front showing half of mirror covered with protective sheet and half without

plastic_mirror3.jpg (131.68 KiB) Viewed 3004 times

[jwpattr]

Here are some completed photos of the backpack:

complete.jpg (136.96 KiB) Viewed 3002 times

complete.jpg (136.96 KiB) Viewed 3002 times

complete_back.jpg (142.49 KiB) Viewed 3002 times

complete_back.jpg (142.49 KiB) Viewed 3002 times

[jwpattr]

I used a cutting wheel on a dremmel tool to cut the plastic mirror pieces out of the pattern posted here (I removed the tabs from the pattern pieces). Then I used CA and zip kicker to glue it all together. On pieces that requred a great deal of bending to shape them, I simply used regular white styrene plastic and a heat gun to form the shapes. Then I used adhesive chrome covering from model airplanes to cover those types of styrene parts. Here are some photos of the tools used:

cutting wheel

dremel.jpg (116.31 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

cutting wheel

dremel.jpg (116.31 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

pattern.jpg (99.72 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

pattern.jpg (99.72 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

Ruber cement used to hold pattern pieces to plastic while cutting.

cement.jpg (103.97 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

Ruber cement used to hold pattern pieces to plastic while cutting.

cement.jpg (103.97 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

various tools used

tools.jpg (137.34 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

various tools used

tools.jpg (137.34 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

used to cover styrene pieces that needed to be bent to shape.

adhesivefoil.jpg (104.91 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

used to cover styrene pieces that needed to be bent to shape.

adhesivefoil.jpg (104.91 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

[SiR-ROUND]

Pretty cool!

[groupleaderzeta]

looks great.

[GoldCylon]

Knock it out of the park using that material. I have seen this stuff before but never gave it much thought like the item you mentioned. I looked more at trying to bend it aka the helmet, and knew it wouldn't work so never tried it, but your back pack looks great.

[Hand-Schaub]

Looks great! A bit of chrome tape on the seams and pow - you got it!

[Big Al]

Awesome Job...Looks great!

[DougMorency]

here is a place to get it in different colors as well

http://www.professionalplastics.com/pro ... rChart.pdf

http://www.professionalplastics.com/ACRYLICMIRROR