Since we´re talking about acids and finishes, I wanted to share my method and tools to etch. I´m going to make a quick guide, if someone needs more, let me know it and i´ll try to expand details:
- I begin with a quality negative of my desing printed in a laser printer. I go to a copy shop where I obtain quality copies in glossy paper, very similar to those used in quality gossip press
. I ask for glossy paper (not the kind used in photos, just glossy but still without that characteristic plastic feeling of photo papers. Hope you understand me).
- After wet sanding the enclosure with grain 360 and 500, I clean it with soap. You can use any product, but soap is good.
- Strong ironing going over the whole surface with the tip of the iron. I make all possible direcctions (vertical, horizontal, both diagonls) leaving the flat of the iron some minutes between each direcction.
- When I see all paper stick to the encluse I leave it to get cold before putting it into water.
- I leave it in water until it peels off alone.
- Remove all the cellulose with your finger and check everything have transferred ok.
- Steal nearer nail polish (can also be yours
) and with a thin brush protect everything you can. Also make a border throughout the whole top of the enclosure to avoid acid leaks.
- Mix 1 part of nitirc acid (agua fuerte in Spain, stong liquid used to clean filthy things like forgotten baths
) with 2 parts of 10% hydrogen peroxide (the one used to cure little wounds)
- Put it in each etchable part with a dropper. Don´t make lakes with acid, put what you need avoiding bubbles (if it bubbles means that you put too much)
- After 3-4 minutes remove the acid with a cottom ball and put new acid.
- Repeat this boredom for 1 hour and a quarter.
- In the last 20 minutes you can add more acid to the enclosure if you want a deep etch. But be carefull, the process at this stage can deceive you.
- Also in this last 20 minutes (more or less, with practice you "feel" what´s going on) you can use the cottom ball to remove part of the black stuff created due to the acid action. Helps to improve the depth.
- After all this is done, clean with water in a safe place (don´t spoil nothing or your wife/mother will have some words with you) and make sure that the etching has been depth enough.
- Clean the whole thing with several cotton balls coated with nail polish remover (the one with acetone)
After all this you can end in two ways:
- Paint in black (choose your color) all the etched areas, correct with wet sanding, polish and clear coat.
- Don´t paint the etched desings, clean it to the bone, polish and clear coat.
For polish I use my drill and those two famous compounds (the blue one and the brown one).
Hope it helps you as much as all tutorials in this forum have help me!!!
PS: Someone asked for a tutorial while I was writting mine... here it goes my humble experience.
