Faux mercury glass, a test

As part of my utensil holder project, I thought it would look neat to use faux mercury glass, so I went out to the web to investigate the technique.  It seems there are two prevailing schools of thought on this.  The folks at the White Picket Bentz blog advocate spraying the dry surface inside a glass container with looking glass paint, following this with a spray of 1:1 vinegar and water, then popping the resulting bubbles.  The folks at the 17 Apart website, on the other hand, advocate spraying the dry surface outside a glass container with 1:1 vinegar and water, immediately spraying with looking glass paint, spraying again with vinegar/water, then dabbing the surface dry before adding more coats.  What this means is I have four different methods to test.

I decided to give the 17 Apart method first, spraying the outside of the jars.  These pictures are of the glass with 1, 2, and 3 coats, respectively.  Not a bad look.  You can click on them to see them larger.

Here are the pictorial results from using the White Picket method of spraying inside the jars.  After the first coat, I was really not happy with the result, so even though the method did not call for coats, I added coats 2 and 3.  Again, you can click on the picture to get a larger version.  To me, the White Picket method resulted in a more translucent coloring than the 17 Apart method.

Here is a side-by-side comparison.  The inside method (on the left) seems to be reflecting more light than the outside method (on the right).  This is a quality of the looking glass paint, which does recommend spraying on the inside to create the reflective surface.  Comparing my photos to the reference photos, the pictures on the White Picket Bentz website show a more completely painted surface.  However, I kind of like the look of the outside method better.  It seems more antique, so I am going to do an additional test using copper paint.

Using the outside method, I sprayed with copper metallic paint rather than looking glass.  Above are the results for 1 coat and 2 coats, respectively.  Using the copper, unfortunately, gets rind of the glass appearance of the silver sprays.  I'm wondering if I should try doing the inside method with the copper, but I want to use the inside of the jar to store my utensils, so that might be a bad idea.

Here, then, are the jars 4 hours later.  The first jar is unpainted, the second is the copper, the third is the inside silver, and the fourth is the outside silver.  I do like the shininess of the looking glass paints, though the copper may coordinate more with the rest of the utensil holder.  I think I will look for a food-grade sealer I can spray into the jar.  If I find one, then I will do an inside test on the copper; if not, I am leaning toward the outside silver.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.