welcome back thanks for joining me today
on the king of random recently I saw a
product that looked like a stone archway
with a hallway extending behind it as
far as the eye could see it was an
illusion set up using a couple of
mirrors and some lights to make it look
like the hallway extended far beyond the
actual dimensions of the product I
thought it was a really cool idea and I
wanted to build my own so the purpose of
today’s video is to show you how I’m
going to build my own infinity mirror
using a few easily available products
the primary supplies we’ll need for this
project are a mirror and a piece of
glass approximately the same size as
each other some styrofoam a couple of
lights and some window tinting the other
supplies I have around our equipment for
building and decorating my infinity
mirror this mirror was originally a
baseplate designed to put candles on to
decorate your home I picked it up at a
craft store for around five bucks if you
have a store near you that sells glass
and will cut it for you to a custom size
you can often get that for fairly cheap
if that’s not available you can often
pick up a picture frame with a glass
front we’re pretty cheap
I have the white styrofoam from Lowe’s
it’s a one-inch sheet of expanded
polystyrene this actually comes in a
4-foot by 8-foot sheet but that didn’t
fit in my car so I had to cut it down
into smaller sizes which worked just
fine for this project
these battery-powered tea lights can
often be found in any home decor section
of a store and I like these ones because
they flicker mimicking a real flame the
window tinting I picked up at an
autoparts supply store this particular
film blocks 35% of light you can go as
high as 50% but you don’t want to go any
darker than that or it’ll be too hard to
see through the front window of your
infinity mirror before we do anything
else with a styrofoam on both sides it
has a plastic coating we want to peel
that off so we have the raw foam because
I cut this foam to fit into my car a lot
of the edges aren’t straight so I’m
using my glass as a square to line up a
new 90 degree angle I’ve got foam to cut
so I’m gonna be using our styro-slicer’
that we’ve shown you in a few other
videos
[Music]
if you haven’t yet gotten around to
building yourself a styro-slicer’ don’t
worry most of what we’re building today
can be done with just a razor blade the
first thing we need to do is set up our
mirror and our pane of glass perfectly
parallel to each other a few inches
apart to start I’ll cut out a large
piece of styrofoam to use as our base
I’ll start with a base that’s a little
wider than it needs to be and I’ll cut
off some extra later but to start off
I’m going to take about three inches on
either side of the mirror
[Music]
now that we’ve got our bass let’s
measure out two lines that we will carve
down to become slots which will hold the
mirror and the glass in place
[Music]
you’ll have to decide how far apart you
want your mirror and your pane of glass
to be if they’re closer together the
repeating light effect will also be
closer together farther apart the
lighting will look more normal but the
effect will be a little bit diminished I
like to leave about 3 inches of space
with our lines measured out we now need
to cut grooves about halfway down into
the foam I’m going to use this handsaw
[Music]
you want to be sure that the saw is
perfectly perpendicular to the poem so
that your slots are straight up and down
with the slots the way we’ve cut them
our pane of glass will fit into the
slots but our mirror is a little bit
thicker so we need to widen that slot so
it fits well to widen the slot for the
mirror let’s just take a piece of
sandpaper and wrap it around a popsicle
stick and run it through the groove we
need to make sure that our mirror and
our glass stay perfectly parallel to
each other so let’s make another piece
of foam that will go on top of the two
and hold them straight up and down this
piece of foam I want to be about one
inch narrower on both sides of the glass
this piece of foam in the end will be
entirely covered up by the decorative
parts of the infinity mirror it needs to
hold the pane of glass in the mirror in
place but it doesn’t need to be as
extensive as the bases the grooves that
will hold the mirror and the glass on
our base are three inches apart so if
there are three inches apart on the top
as well the two planes should be
perfectly parallel
[Music]
now because my pane of glass is a little
bit smaller than my mirror my one inch
thickness of foam is actually not thick
enough to build a cap on top of this so
I’m going to cut another piece identical
to this one slice it on the lines that
I’ve marked and then glue it all
together to make a piece that will hold
our pane of glass and our mirror steady
[Music]
[Music]
that should hold our two pieces pretty
well gluing styrofoam together can be
tricky some kinds of glue will dissolve
or melt your styrofoam what I’m going to
be using today is a very low heat glue
gun it’s cool enough that the glue
shouldn’t melt the styrofoam at all
feels like you’re working pretty well
trying to leave just enough room that
the pane of glass will fit nicely of
course on this side I need to leave
enough room for the slightly wider
mirror just to reinforce the glue on
putting a strip on the outside here as
well our styrofoam cap lines up pretty
well with our two panes of glass but
it’s still having a little bit of a hard
time fitting nicely onto the mirror so
to make it conform even more perfectly
to the shape I’m going to use a piece of
sandpaper on top of the mirror and carve
it down like that we’ve got our base and
our cap piece which are holding our
mirror and our pane of glass perfectly
parallel to each other so now it’s time
to start adding some more pieces to make
this a little more decorative the first
piece I’ll add will act as a sort of
facade I’m going for sort of a castle
theme on this infinity mirror so what I
want is a piece that comes up on the
sides and just makes a nice face for the
whole thing on this calf you can see one
of the pieces of styrofoam sticks out a
little bit farther than the top piece of
styrofoam so I’m going to trim it down
so the two are flush to make this facade
I’m actually going to cut three pieces
of styrofoam one for each side and one
that will go across the top I’ll start
by cutting a two inch wide strip from
this styrofoam
[Music]
next I’ll measure the height so it comes
up to the same place as the top of the
cap
[Music]
we will want our side pieces to overlap
the glass a little bit so let’s use our
hand saw and cut some more grooves
[Music]
looking good so far let’s add a few more
details with the cat piece and the two
side supports added I’m going to make a
single facade piece that will raise up
higher than the level of our cap this
area here is where we’ll be able to see
the glass so this part of the styrofoam
will be removed and the rest of it will
stay there we go that looks pretty good
now I want to add a curved archway so
I’m going to trace out our facade and
figure out a good shape that will fit
entirely on it I don’t want the archway
to be quite as wide as the facade and
I’m going to have it come in just a
little bit
I’m gonna make that a little bit larger
because I do want it to extend beyond
the corners here all right I’m gonna
give this a rough cut with the razor
blade and then I’ll go around all the
detail edges with the styro-slicer’
[Music]
beautiful leave that it will turn into a
fantastic stone archway our decorative
pieces are coming along nicely now I’m
going to add a strip across the back of
the cap and another piece that goes on
top of the whole thing let’s measure how
high we need that strip to be
[Music]
now let’s measure a piece that goes on
top of the beam we just added and our
facade act as a cap on top of the whole
thing I do want it to extend about an
inch ahead of the facade this line
represents the front of the facade so
I’m going to extend it about one inch
beyond there
[Music]
while I measure this cat piece that was
going on top and then I decided I
actually wanted to extend about an inch
off to the sides as well so I’m going to
trace this out onto another piece of
styrofoam just adding a couple inches to
the width new piece cut I like that fit
a lot better with it extending off of
the sides as well as the front I want to
start gluing things together so it’s
more structurally sound as I finish it
up but before I do that there’s a few
more decorative elements I need to add
to these pieces
[Music]
the structural and the decorative pieces
are both ready to go but before we start
assembling everything permanently we
need to clean the mirror and the glass
and attach our darkening film to the
glass pane that’s static electricity
making our styrofoam stick to everything
right now let’s take our darkening film
and stretch it over our piece of glass
then we’ll cut out a piece leaving a
border about an inch and a half wide
around the whole pane the film has a
dark side and a clear side which is just
used to make it so it doesn’t stick to
yourself while you’re preparing it for
this next step I’m using this window
film application solution but you can
also just use soapy water spray both the
glass and the film so that as we lift
the film and place it onto the glass
it’s not sticking to everything
everywhere so at this point our film is
on our glass but it’s still got all
sorts of this soapy liquid inside it so
we need to use a sort of squeegee to
press all that out and make sure that
the film and the glass make contact
since I’ve got it laying around I’m
going to use a piece of styrofoam as my
squeegee starting in the middle and
pushing all the bubbles out toward the
edge that sounds horrible but it is
working our film is now pressed down
over the whole glass pane so I’m going
to take the razor blade and trim off all
of the extra we’ve got the film attached
to the glass and the glass and mirror
are both nice and clean so let’s start
assembling everything when you’re
putting the glass in make sure that the
side with the film on it is facing the
mirror the film might take a day or so
to completely dry and stick to the glass
so when you’re putting it into the
little slot be careful that you’re not
causing it to peel up
[Music]
to make sure that the test-fit works
with our facade piece here liking that
too all right let’s take our glue gun
and start attaching some of the pieces
more permanently this piece I could
attach right now but I am gonna be doing
some painting on this and to make sure
that I’m easily able to paint the inside
edges of some of these parts I’m gonna
attach this piece later I am going to
trace where it is so that I know up to
what point I can add the paint now we’ve
got most of it built and all we need to
do is add a couple of side pieces to
seal it off
[Music]
I glued one side on but not the other
because we need to have access to be
able to put things in between the two
reflective surfaces we have our two
lights but we don’t want them to just
sit in the box so let’s make a little
stand for each light
[Music]
there we have it all of our pieces of
the infinity mirror in place all we have
left to do is a little bit of painting
and secure everything down
[Music]
I’ve got the whole thing covered in a
layer of acrylic paint and now just make
it pop a little extra I’m gonna use some
black ink in my airbrush
[Music]
there we have it the decorative housing
for the infinity mirror is now complete
all this left to do is secure these two
bases down inside turn on the tea lights
and watch it go and now instead of
gluing this on because we want to be
able to reach in and out and turn the
tea lights on and off so we don’t run
out of battery I’m going to be using a
couple pieces of bamboo skewer poke
through the foam to hold this piece in
place there we go now we can easily pull
out both of these bamboo skewers and we
need to reach in and out there you have
it that is how you can build your very
own infinity mirror of course with this
one the lights are not super powerful so
it’s more like a really really long
mirror having quite reached infinity I
chose a castle theme because I thought
the orange color of the lights mixed
really well with that idea but you don’t
have to use this theme if you have a
different color lights you can go with a
different design theme even if you have
the same color lights you can choose
what you want yours to look like I just
like castle stuff I think the effect
works the best if your infinity mirror
is pushed up against a light-colored
wall it really helps with the contrast
of the darkness of the tunnel with the
light of the wall making it look like
it’s going through what its resting up
against one more thing that I want to
mention is this actually looks better in
real life we’re pretty limited by the
low light abilities of our camera but
when you’re seeing it with your eyes
the flames really pop out and they do
seem to be disappearing into the wall I
really had fun showing you how I built
this today and I hope you had fun
watching it thanks for joining us for
this project and we’ll see you in the
next one talk to you then oh that’s
fantastic
oh my ears are gonna ring for days after
that now it looks like the tunnel of
lights is going right through me hey
guys did you know that we’re on Twitter
Instagram and Facebook as well all at
the king of random and every platform
has a different purpose so go scroll
through the histories check out what
we’re doing I’ll see you there
[Music]
on the king of random recently I saw a
product that looked like a stone archway
with a hallway extending behind it as
far as the eye could see it was an
illusion set up using a couple of
mirrors and some lights to make it look
like the hallway extended far beyond the
actual dimensions of the product I
thought it was a really cool idea and I
wanted to build my own so the purpose of
today’s video is to show you how I’m
going to build my own infinity mirror
using a few easily available products
the primary supplies we’ll need for this
project are a mirror and a piece of
glass approximately the same size as
each other some styrofoam a couple of
lights and some window tinting the other
supplies I have around our equipment for
building and decorating my infinity
mirror this mirror was originally a
baseplate designed to put candles on to
decorate your home I picked it up at a
craft store for around five bucks if you
have a store near you that sells glass
and will cut it for you to a custom size
you can often get that for fairly cheap
if that’s not available you can often
pick up a picture frame with a glass
front we’re pretty cheap
I have the white styrofoam from Lowe’s
it’s a one-inch sheet of expanded
polystyrene this actually comes in a
4-foot by 8-foot sheet but that didn’t
fit in my car so I had to cut it down
into smaller sizes which worked just
fine for this project
these battery-powered tea lights can
often be found in any home decor section
of a store and I like these ones because
they flicker mimicking a real flame the
window tinting I picked up at an
autoparts supply store this particular
film blocks 35% of light you can go as
high as 50% but you don’t want to go any
darker than that or it’ll be too hard to
see through the front window of your
infinity mirror before we do anything
else with a styrofoam on both sides it
has a plastic coating we want to peel
that off so we have the raw foam because
I cut this foam to fit into my car a lot
of the edges aren’t straight so I’m
using my glass as a square to line up a
new 90 degree angle I’ve got foam to cut
so I’m gonna be using our styro-slicer’
that we’ve shown you in a few other
videos
[Music]
if you haven’t yet gotten around to
building yourself a styro-slicer’ don’t
worry most of what we’re building today
can be done with just a razor blade the
first thing we need to do is set up our
mirror and our pane of glass perfectly
parallel to each other a few inches
apart to start I’ll cut out a large
piece of styrofoam to use as our base
I’ll start with a base that’s a little
wider than it needs to be and I’ll cut
off some extra later but to start off
I’m going to take about three inches on
either side of the mirror
[Music]
now that we’ve got our bass let’s
measure out two lines that we will carve
down to become slots which will hold the
mirror and the glass in place
[Music]
you’ll have to decide how far apart you
want your mirror and your pane of glass
to be if they’re closer together the
repeating light effect will also be
closer together farther apart the
lighting will look more normal but the
effect will be a little bit diminished I
like to leave about 3 inches of space
with our lines measured out we now need
to cut grooves about halfway down into
the foam I’m going to use this handsaw
[Music]
you want to be sure that the saw is
perfectly perpendicular to the poem so
that your slots are straight up and down
with the slots the way we’ve cut them
our pane of glass will fit into the
slots but our mirror is a little bit
thicker so we need to widen that slot so
it fits well to widen the slot for the
mirror let’s just take a piece of
sandpaper and wrap it around a popsicle
stick and run it through the groove we
need to make sure that our mirror and
our glass stay perfectly parallel to
each other so let’s make another piece
of foam that will go on top of the two
and hold them straight up and down this
piece of foam I want to be about one
inch narrower on both sides of the glass
this piece of foam in the end will be
entirely covered up by the decorative
parts of the infinity mirror it needs to
hold the pane of glass in the mirror in
place but it doesn’t need to be as
extensive as the bases the grooves that
will hold the mirror and the glass on
our base are three inches apart so if
there are three inches apart on the top
as well the two planes should be
perfectly parallel
[Music]
now because my pane of glass is a little
bit smaller than my mirror my one inch
thickness of foam is actually not thick
enough to build a cap on top of this so
I’m going to cut another piece identical
to this one slice it on the lines that
I’ve marked and then glue it all
together to make a piece that will hold
our pane of glass and our mirror steady
[Music]
[Music]
that should hold our two pieces pretty
well gluing styrofoam together can be
tricky some kinds of glue will dissolve
or melt your styrofoam what I’m going to
be using today is a very low heat glue
gun it’s cool enough that the glue
shouldn’t melt the styrofoam at all
feels like you’re working pretty well
trying to leave just enough room that
the pane of glass will fit nicely of
course on this side I need to leave
enough room for the slightly wider
mirror just to reinforce the glue on
putting a strip on the outside here as
well our styrofoam cap lines up pretty
well with our two panes of glass but
it’s still having a little bit of a hard
time fitting nicely onto the mirror so
to make it conform even more perfectly
to the shape I’m going to use a piece of
sandpaper on top of the mirror and carve
it down like that we’ve got our base and
our cap piece which are holding our
mirror and our pane of glass perfectly
parallel to each other so now it’s time
to start adding some more pieces to make
this a little more decorative the first
piece I’ll add will act as a sort of
facade I’m going for sort of a castle
theme on this infinity mirror so what I
want is a piece that comes up on the
sides and just makes a nice face for the
whole thing on this calf you can see one
of the pieces of styrofoam sticks out a
little bit farther than the top piece of
styrofoam so I’m going to trim it down
so the two are flush to make this facade
I’m actually going to cut three pieces
of styrofoam one for each side and one
that will go across the top I’ll start
by cutting a two inch wide strip from
this styrofoam
[Music]
next I’ll measure the height so it comes
up to the same place as the top of the
cap
[Music]
we will want our side pieces to overlap
the glass a little bit so let’s use our
hand saw and cut some more grooves
[Music]
looking good so far let’s add a few more
details with the cat piece and the two
side supports added I’m going to make a
single facade piece that will raise up
higher than the level of our cap this
area here is where we’ll be able to see
the glass so this part of the styrofoam
will be removed and the rest of it will
stay there we go that looks pretty good
now I want to add a curved archway so
I’m going to trace out our facade and
figure out a good shape that will fit
entirely on it I don’t want the archway
to be quite as wide as the facade and
I’m going to have it come in just a
little bit
I’m gonna make that a little bit larger
because I do want it to extend beyond
the corners here all right I’m gonna
give this a rough cut with the razor
blade and then I’ll go around all the
detail edges with the styro-slicer’
[Music]
beautiful leave that it will turn into a
fantastic stone archway our decorative
pieces are coming along nicely now I’m
going to add a strip across the back of
the cap and another piece that goes on
top of the whole thing let’s measure how
high we need that strip to be
[Music]
now let’s measure a piece that goes on
top of the beam we just added and our
facade act as a cap on top of the whole
thing I do want it to extend about an
inch ahead of the facade this line
represents the front of the facade so
I’m going to extend it about one inch
beyond there
[Music]
while I measure this cat piece that was
going on top and then I decided I
actually wanted to extend about an inch
off to the sides as well so I’m going to
trace this out onto another piece of
styrofoam just adding a couple inches to
the width new piece cut I like that fit
a lot better with it extending off of
the sides as well as the front I want to
start gluing things together so it’s
more structurally sound as I finish it
up but before I do that there’s a few
more decorative elements I need to add
to these pieces
[Music]
the structural and the decorative pieces
are both ready to go but before we start
assembling everything permanently we
need to clean the mirror and the glass
and attach our darkening film to the
glass pane that’s static electricity
making our styrofoam stick to everything
right now let’s take our darkening film
and stretch it over our piece of glass
then we’ll cut out a piece leaving a
border about an inch and a half wide
around the whole pane the film has a
dark side and a clear side which is just
used to make it so it doesn’t stick to
yourself while you’re preparing it for
this next step I’m using this window
film application solution but you can
also just use soapy water spray both the
glass and the film so that as we lift
the film and place it onto the glass
it’s not sticking to everything
everywhere so at this point our film is
on our glass but it’s still got all
sorts of this soapy liquid inside it so
we need to use a sort of squeegee to
press all that out and make sure that
the film and the glass make contact
since I’ve got it laying around I’m
going to use a piece of styrofoam as my
squeegee starting in the middle and
pushing all the bubbles out toward the
edge that sounds horrible but it is
working our film is now pressed down
over the whole glass pane so I’m going
to take the razor blade and trim off all
of the extra we’ve got the film attached
to the glass and the glass and mirror
are both nice and clean so let’s start
assembling everything when you’re
putting the glass in make sure that the
side with the film on it is facing the
mirror the film might take a day or so
to completely dry and stick to the glass
so when you’re putting it into the
little slot be careful that you’re not
causing it to peel up
[Music]
to make sure that the test-fit works
with our facade piece here liking that
too all right let’s take our glue gun
and start attaching some of the pieces
more permanently this piece I could
attach right now but I am gonna be doing
some painting on this and to make sure
that I’m easily able to paint the inside
edges of some of these parts I’m gonna
attach this piece later I am going to
trace where it is so that I know up to
what point I can add the paint now we’ve
got most of it built and all we need to
do is add a couple of side pieces to
seal it off
[Music]
I glued one side on but not the other
because we need to have access to be
able to put things in between the two
reflective surfaces we have our two
lights but we don’t want them to just
sit in the box so let’s make a little
stand for each light
[Music]
there we have it all of our pieces of
the infinity mirror in place all we have
left to do is a little bit of painting
and secure everything down
[Music]
I’ve got the whole thing covered in a
layer of acrylic paint and now just make
it pop a little extra I’m gonna use some
black ink in my airbrush
[Music]
there we have it the decorative housing
for the infinity mirror is now complete
all this left to do is secure these two
bases down inside turn on the tea lights
and watch it go and now instead of
gluing this on because we want to be
able to reach in and out and turn the
tea lights on and off so we don’t run
out of battery I’m going to be using a
couple pieces of bamboo skewer poke
through the foam to hold this piece in
place there we go now we can easily pull
out both of these bamboo skewers and we
need to reach in and out there you have
it that is how you can build your very
own infinity mirror of course with this
one the lights are not super powerful so
it’s more like a really really long
mirror having quite reached infinity I
chose a castle theme because I thought
the orange color of the lights mixed
really well with that idea but you don’t
have to use this theme if you have a
different color lights you can go with a
different design theme even if you have
the same color lights you can choose
what you want yours to look like I just
like castle stuff I think the effect
works the best if your infinity mirror
is pushed up against a light-colored
wall it really helps with the contrast
of the darkness of the tunnel with the
light of the wall making it look like
it’s going through what its resting up
against one more thing that I want to
mention is this actually looks better in
real life we’re pretty limited by the
low light abilities of our camera but
when you’re seeing it with your eyes
the flames really pop out and they do
seem to be disappearing into the wall I
really had fun showing you how I built
this today and I hope you had fun
watching it thanks for joining us for
this project and we’ll see you in the
next one talk to you then oh that’s
fantastic
oh my ears are gonna ring for days after
that now it looks like the tunnel of
lights is going right through me hey
guys did you know that we’re on Twitter
Instagram and Facebook as well all at
the king of random and every platform
has a different purpose so go scroll
through the histories check out what
we’re doing I’ll see you there
[Music]
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