Hand Mirror Made From CNC Router

As a project in my high school shop class, I was assigned a group and we all had to make some high-quality Hand Mirrors from our CNC router.

The materials we decided to use were

• Light coloured hardwood - We decided to use Maple 3*(24*18*1)"
• Dark coloured hardwood - We decided to use American Walnut (7*12.5)"
• Hardwood finish
• Wood Glue
• Mirrors 6" diameter

Before starting we needed to get a solid idea of what we wanted our hand mirrors to look like. We quickly realized there isn't very much variety that can be added to make a unique hand mirror. We ended up deciding on a bi-color striped design using maple and American walnut wood. We also made a CAD model of the mirror in Solidworks which is pictured above

The final boards we wanted, were (18*24*1)" so to accomplish this by using different woods we first planed one side to create a flat face then we cut slices (for lack of a better term) of wood with widths varying between 1 and 2 inches but added up to 18" in total. The final board product is above.

Once we had all slices cut out we glued them up and clamped them to create a final board of (24*18*1). From here we decided to use hand planers to create a flat surface.

Using the mirror CAD file from the Brainstorm step we created a V-Carve file which is the program our router uses. From there we mounted the board in and were able to cut four mirrors in one board. Here's the link to the V-Carve file https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8kZlqly_TvjRGNJQ2lzU2l5eUtkSlF1ekdDVlJJbkVMYTVF

Once the mirrors were cut out with the router we had to table route the edges to create a round corner.

Once the edges were routed we had to smooth everything down with sandpaper, we started with a low grit and moved higher eventually getting to 300 grit. We also decided to use hand sandpaper rather than any tools which won't be quite as accurate.

Finally, once all other steps were done and the mirrors looked finished, we decided to put some wood finish on the wood. We used the Minwax Tung Oil Finish featured in the picture above. Then once all dried we took mirrors 6" in diameter and epoxied them into the cutout holes which they needed to go.