It's Not Rocket Science

If you watched the optic wave lab video on how to clean your mirror, you'll realize that a lot of the stuff you've read and heard about the "dangers" of cleaning your mirror are a whole lot of BS.
Now, over on that other amateur website, you'll read about the dangers of stripping it, too. Well, here's another optician, showing you how it's done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdmwqrdDOMs
It's not rocket science, either...

Hi, Rod. Nice! I would occasionally watch the guys at our shop do this on big mirrors. And it was essentially the same. There was a pedestal/turntable that they worked at, and they used heavier tape attached to a plastic or rubber skirt, "just in case". Center hole had some dam and skirt there, too. The type of coating determined the chemistry and time. They wore rubber aprons, making it look rather like a butcher shop.  Tom

Thomas,
That's interesting. If you read that other amateur website, and I wouldn't fault you if you didn't, you'd see the head optics guru who can do no wrong chiming in on a thread on supposed mirror coating failure and stating he uses the same stripping agent as the guy in the video. I think the guy in the video has been doing it longer than he has...

Cool, I think I may have tweaked over there a couple of weeks ago. Provided my (true!) anecdote, where I tried near EVERY solvent I could think of, on a recalcitrant coating... before taking it to EMF, where they successfully-stripped and coated it! I even attached a picture of some of the nasty stuff out in my shop (I didn't actually use the mercury, though). Turned out the coating had a blush of Chromium deposited before the silver. EMF got it off with... I'm guessing CHROMIUM STRIPPER!  Tom