Fixing a Broken Mirror

This Instructable is about the repair and repurposing of a broken mirror in a coat rack.

Background: My wife and I have a friend that's been doing a lot of blacksmithing lately. He made us a set of awesome coat rack hooks and I wanted to show them off with a new coat rack in our house.

I salvaged the mirror from our old, perfectly good coat rack, and managed to break the glass getting it out of the frame. Since new glass is a few hundred bucks, I decided to get crafty and fix it with a piece of cork board. Now it's a mirror and a spot for notes!

Broken mirror - this one's a Stanley Pub Mirror

Cork Board

New Frame, Hooks

Razor knife

Router and Bit

(Optional) Drill, 1/4" bit, Dowels

This mirror is 10x32 and has a cardboard backer with the same dimensions.

I propped the mirror up on a couple cork pieces to have the correct height for my cut. Then I used the cardboard as a template to align the corner of the cork and the corners of the mirror.

Then it's as simple as (without moving the cork or mirror) tracing the broken edge of the glass with a razor knife. Slow, easy, and shallow cuts are key. One deep cut will almost certainly make it look jagged.

Then I marked the straight cut for the cork, and used a straight edge to cut it out.

My cork is 1/2" thick, but my mirror is only 3/16". So I set my router to the deeper cork depth, so nothing protrudes out the back of my frame when I'm all done.

With a 10" mirror, and a 9.5" frame, I need to take 1/4" off, all the way around the inside of the back of the frame.

With this Kreg Jig, it's pretty easy to get the depth right. Setting the router guide is a little trickier... The right way to do it would have been to router it before gluing the frame together. Then it finishes with a really clean back, like the photo I've attached of the back of a finished mirror I did last week.

The next best way to do it is to run the router guide on the inside of the opening so when I inevitably lose control of the router, it jumps into empty space, not deeper into my frame.

I, however, chose to do it the wrong way. Why would I do that? Because running the guide on the inside of the frame would mean the guide would be in the way of getting into corners. Then I'd have to chisel, or hand router every corner, which is sometimes worth it, but in this case, any mistakes I make are going to be hidden on the back of a firmly mounted frame, so nobody will see them.

I set my router guide in a unique way - set the bit against the material, then set the guide. Take a measurement from the edge of the guide to a point on the router (ideally the centerline of the bit, but it's easier on the edge of the router deck). Then reset the guide a 1/4" closer than you measured. I added a 1/16" to allow for the frame being out of square, and to make it easier to slide the glass in.

Then router the groove and test fit everything. You'll notice my frame is not symmetrical. So I had to reset my router guide for the one side that is thicker than the other three.

You can see how often the router got away from me and took out more material than anticipated. And notice how I router deep into the corners to avoid chiseling. Again, this will all be hidden when it's hung.

Always dry-fit first.

I have a unique way to hold the glass in. Using a little tape to create a depth stop, I drill several 1/4" holes around the inside of the frame and press in dowels (without glue) to retain the glass. They keep it pretty snug, and they're easy to remove if that time ever comes.

The cork gets glued in with minimal amounts of glue. It's porous, so too much glue can bleed through the cork and be unsightly. Clean up with a damp cloth.

The frame isn't too heavy, but all the coats on it sure are, so it really needs some long screws going into the studs.

The studs are easy to find here, because I have a junction box close by. Junction boxes are almost always mounted to the side of a stud, so I just pulled off the box cover and checked which side the stud was on with a flashlight.

I spaced the hooks at 8" On Center so I could run two long screws into studs (on 16" centers) and hide them behind the hooks.

In sum, mirrors are expensive. Custom mirrors are insanely expensive. I was able to salvage a broken mirror by grafting a cork board onto it. It's not perfect - there are a couple tiny chips along the break that are unsightly. I could inlay a strip of oak over the break to hide the seam, or re-cut the glass and make a smaller coat rack... Or just hide the seam with pictures of dogs. My four-legged helper votes for the latter.