Woodward Ranch Mirror Quadruplit Experiment/Tutorial - wip

We'll see if this turns into a tutorial or a "what to avoid doing" post!  I've only ever made doublets before (white stone or black stone behind, transparent slab in front), and have never worked with glass or mirrors.  Never made a triplet or a quaduplit.  There's a first time for everything!

So I found a few pretty nice little Woodward Ranch slabettes at Q this year that were (amazingly) a very affordable price. The one in this shot was $1. I was digging through a giant bucket of them and holding them against a piece of howlite to inspect them (no sun!). I observed an interesting thing - the light shines though brighter when you hold the slab about half an inch above the howlite, rather than right on it. More opportunity for the light to get back there I guess.

That gave me an idea. I wanted to try making a triplet with a layer of clear glass between the backing and the stone in front. And set the whole thick little sandwich in a prong setting to let the light in.
It's going to be a bit on the tall side, so I'll have to do something with the setting to make it lay properly as a pendant (probably set it in the center of a much wider backing sheet with some sort of decoration).

So here's the sandwich I ended up with, after a little experimenting:

Backing: cheapo hand mirror. It's about 1/8" thick, and is a regular mirror, not a front surface mirror.  A thicker mirror would have allowed me to do away with the sandwich glass layer but I didn't have one.



Filler glass: From a picture frame. It's about 1/16".  I don't know anything about different types of glass.
Maybe there is a better type to use?  It didn't look too greenish at least.



Slabette (forgot to get a pic before I trimmed it.  It's around 3/23" thick.  The top had a fracture I didn't like or I would have left it taller.






About this time I decided to use a cap too, since I thought I'd grind away crucial parts of the plumes if I domed the slabette itself.
Didn't have any optical quartz in this size handy, so I just cut another piece of glass.  We'll see if I have to grind it off and redo it later.




The pieces after cutting in my Ameritool trim saw with the BD303c blade:








Of note:  the glass chipped pretty badly and the metallic backing on the mirror chipped horribly.
Luckily I had cut the pieces big enough to allow extra space around the edges that I can grind off gently later to get down to the good mirror.


Here's a pic of the back of the rest of the mirror, to show the chipping. There's like a 1/8" chipped border!



Since there are 4 layers, I had to start with two sandwiches, and later I'll combine them.  With the E330, it dries so slow that sometimes it moves around, so gluing and clamping all 4 at once seemed like a bad idea.




You mix up the E330, very gently.  I put my blobs on a paper plate, and mix slowly with a toothpick.
The E330 allows enough working time that you don't have to stir fast.  You can tell by the color change when it's mixed.
Then smear on a bunch and cover the entire surface of one piece (don't want any gaps). 
Place the top piece at an angle and slowly close it (thanks for the tip to ___(whoever it was can't remember) about that recently.)
Then, mush it around to make sure there is glue covering the entire area the surfaces are touching.



Push down firmly to push the excess epoxy out the sides and check again that it is lined up how you want it.



Clamp, check AGAIN that it is still lined up right, and wait.  Incandescent bulb speeds things up somewhat.
(these little clamps from Amazon have been great).


Then, clean epoxy off of yourself and your camera with Acetone.    Am I the only one who always manages to get it all over me?

Will update the steps as I go.  I'll probably glue the sandwiches together tonight, and start grinding tomorrow evening.