The Mirror Frame v1 and Other Concepts
Yeah, I did spend $1100 to make two of these mirrors for my bathroom, but it was worth it! And it really wasn’t that much; the majority of the cost was purchasing software: Rhino. I spent the past three months learning how to create parametric designs using Grasshopper inside of Rhino. Grasshopper lets you generate really cool shapes using a programming-like node structure and math. You can actually write code to do stuff too, but I haven’t really dived too deep into that side of things.
Before I get too far, you can download this design from Corbin’s Workshop and make a copy for yourself on your own CNC machine: Digital Files: Mirror Frame v1. I shared all the files as a free download. For those of you with Rhino 8 (or higher), you can open up the design file in Grasshopper and change a lot of the parameters to control the shape. If you use Fusion 360, I included the toolpaths and setup for machining it on my Avid CNC. I also included the STL files, which you can import into other CAM/Toolpath software, such as Vectric VCarve/Aspire, Carveco, etc.
My two mirrors are made out of cherry wood (about $80), and finished with Osmo Polyx, in satin. The mirrors were purchased from Lowes at a cost of $20 each. Lowes is awesome, in they will custom cut the mirror sizes in store, so I didn’t have to worry about trying it myself and breaking the glass. The guy who cut them for me accidentally broke one mirror that was sticking out of the storage area.
I’m pretty pleased with the organic flow-y shape that I generated. This is just a simple curve that starts at one corner, rises upward to create a mountain, and then flows back down to the other corner. The heights and positions are all customizable inside of Grasshopper.
I did experiment with some other ideas. Here’s one of them shown below: the idea was to create a lot of randomly extruded triangles to give it a unique texture. In the end, I didn’t like this concept, and it was a little too crazy. It still might make an interesting picture frame, especially if I remove the curved top (that was just to get an idea of how it might look).
