Cleaning Aliens off my Mirror

[Captain Scarlet]

Every now and again I look down into the murky depths of my newts to see how dusty the mirrors are. My 8” I cleaned recently and was due a clean. My 12” didn’t really seem to warrant it but there were some white spots I’ve been monitoring and been concerned about.

With today, New Year’s Day being grey, high wind and driving rain, I decided to give it a go.

Those white spots were nasty!

I first rinsed it with warm water, added a few drops of Fairy Liquid and fingertipped away the biological matter, which just dissolved away. Very satisfying. I followed this up with a dash of Residual Oil Remover (home-brew: ammonia, liquid soap, isopropyl and salt) and fingertipped again. All rinsed off and finished off with some laboratory-grade distilled water.

I’ll now store them vertical but mirror facing down, and see if that helps.

Cheers, Magnus

 

Edited January 1 by Captain Scarlet

[MartianHill]

It looks like the Mysterons have gotten to that mirror 😱

[knightware2]

If you decide to have another go at cleaning this mirror...

I am a little concerned about the spots left after your first cleaning. Hopefully, they will clean off. Those are my favorite kind of spots! You might consider soaking it for a bit in a water and soap solution, then proceed with fingertips and ROR procedure. Rinse with distilled water.

If this doesn't remove the spots, the coating on the mirror may be etched. The only remedy I know of then would be to have it re-coated.

I hope the mirror still performs sufficiently. I am not a fan of shipping mirrors for re-coating, but is necessary sometimes.

Good Luck!
- Phyllis

 

[Captain Scarlet]

17 minutes ago, knightware2 said:

If you decide to have another go at cleaning this mirror...

I am a little concerned about the spots left after your first cleaning. Hopefully, they will clean off. Those are my favorite kind of spots! You might consider soaking it for a bit in a water and soap solution, then proceed with fingertips and ROR procedure. Rinse with distilled water.

If this doesn't remove the spots, the coating on the mirror may be etched. The only remedy I know of then would be to have it re-coated.

I hope the mirror still performs sufficiently. I am not a fan of shipping mirrors for re-coating, but is necessary sometimes.

Good Luck!
- Phyllis

 

Thanks Phyllis. Those very bright spots left over in the final photo were actually drops of water left over from the final rinse, not quite having dried off. There was also a bit of leaching of the centre-spot adhesive from the quite powerful ROR solution, but that’s in the secondary shadow so I’m not too worried about that.

[bosun21]

When drying a mirror after washing I use a hairdryer on low to blow all the excess drops off the surface. I then allow it to completely dry the mirror. It’s worked great for me.