I found this ugly old mirror for free on my local marketplace site, but it was too plain and ugly for my house as it was. I try and make all my projects from recycled materials so this mirror was my next victim. I had seen the live edge mirrors on Pinterest but I was never lucky enough to find a slab of wood to make one. I was going to try and make one out of a log. I cut my mirror to size using a glass cutting knife and because this mirror was thin it snapped perfectly first time. The length of my mirror was 1300mm by 400mm wide.
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I was given a few split logs from our local wood mill. I spotted them one day and went and asked how much they cost. Because I only wanted a couple, he gave them to me for free. And the kind guy even delivered them for me which was great because they were 4meters long. I cut a piece of the log the same length as my mirror. I used an electric planer to remove the bulk of wood from the top of the log. Once it was small enough to fit through the thickness planer I pushed it through a few times to reduce the thickness and remove some of the weight from the log. This made so much sawdust and mess, but it was great in the end.
When I was happy with the thickness of the log, I cut it in half using a circular saw. I was happy to have the outside edges thick, but I wanted the inside edge to slope into the mirror like a riverbed. I used a jigsaw and cut the inside edge freehand to make a wavy edge which was supposed to look like a river. To smooth it off and slope it in I used an angle grinder with a sanding disc to remove the bulk of wood. And used an orbital sander starting with 180grit sanding discs and ending with a 320grit sanding disc. When the surface was all smooth, I used cedar stain to add some colour and used rubbing oil for my finish.
I attached the mirror to the centre of a piece of plywood using no nails glue. I left enough wood either side so that the wood could be screwed into the board, slightly overlapping the mirror. And that was my mirror ready to hang. It is so hard to photograph a mirror and show it off well, so I took my photos outside.
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