Resilvering

[Andrew_Fanner]

I have recently been given an old EBBCO sextant. The silvering on the mirrors is a bit past its best in several areas.

Does some firm somewhere offer a resilvering service or should I be purchasing a cheap mirror and glass cutter?

Portsmouth area would be favorite but I'm not that fussy.

<hr width=100% size=1>Two beers please, my friend is paying.

 

[snowleopard]

took my sextant for re-silvering to kelvin hughes. including re-callibration the bill was around £120. hardly worth it for a plastic sextant though i expect you could get it cheaper by shopping around.

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[fluffc]

Don't know too much about sextants - wish I did. But I think that the mirrors should be front-silvered, not like a normal mirror which has the silvering on the back.

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[Casey]

Try http://www.bpsc-marine.co.uk.

I had my sextant mirrors resilvered and have been very satisfied. I cannot remember the cost so it must have been reasonable. They are based in Southampton

The man who does the job monitors this forum so you may hear from him too!!

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[peterb]

I bought a cheap powder compact (99p from Woolies, IIRC), cut up the flat mirror for my Ebbco and kept the concave one to use if I get anything in my eye. Works perfectly, even though not front surface silvered.

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[misterg]

Try Scientific Mirrors:
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.vacuumcoatings.co.uk>http://www.vacuumcoatings.co.uk</A>

If you send them the mirrors, it should be about a tenner. (Your silver is probably aluminium - get the overcoat, it makes the mirrors much tougher)

(Have had large & small telescope mirrors coated by them - all happened as advertised. Speak to them about whether you need to mask the half mirror.)

Andy
{edit} Beware of potential confusion if talking about a "half silvered" mirror - this can mean one which is coated over its whole area, but not to the full density so that it remains partly transparent. {edit}
<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by misterg on 09/09/2004 21:38 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[bpscmarine]

If you let us have the mirrors in question we can get them re-silvered
Regards
Barry www.bpsc-marine.co.uk

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