Sunday, June 29, 2008

Mental Metal Images

Copper, Tinker, Brass

Cut some pieces of brass, copper and german silver sheet into various sizes.

Prepped the metal sheet with images to resist the etching, getting everything all set for an etching session.

Then after all the metal pieces were ready and set to go, mixed up fresh etching solution. Boy that stuff has fumes. Turned the exhaust fans on high to clear out the smell.

Very pleased with the results. The copper looks very dark and rich and the designs are very clear. What do you think?

Want to take some of the circular shaped designs and use the dapping block to make some half circle lockets.

Only problem, once the metal is etched, it's too hard to take the sheers to it to cut it up.

Suffering from a bad case of 'Precious Saved Syndrome' - only thing that cures it is to make a lot of them alike so they aren't all so special and unique. That way, if one gets messed up or the attempt to form the locket halves doesn't go as planned, there's another piece all ready to use.

Have some people waiting for some of the etched brass, good to get it done and make available. This is the first attempt at etching copper sheet, going to put on Etsy.

Used a small piece of the german silver (it's a nickel alloy, no silver in it) to test etch, got a pretty good image. Drilled holes in the corners to use with some beads as a charm.

Seems to take such a long time to get the results. The day has just flown by, and both hands are a mess, will have to soak them to get all the black off and out from under the fingernails.

3 comments:

Gaea said...

These look amazing! Would love to see what happens next!

Mary Newton Designs said...

Hi, I'm curious to know what you use to etch with. I use ferric chloride and there are no fumes, although it is corrosive. It also works fairly quickly with good results on copper, nickle and brass. Just wanted to let you know, but your pieces are great. Mary

LLYYNN - Lynn Davis said...

Mary,
Yes, I do know about ferric chloride. Here where I live, I haven't found a source for it. I'm using hydrogen peroxide and muriatic acid. There's a post here about safety, it's much stronger than ferric chloride but works much, much faster - http://z-llyynn.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-account-of-weather.html

If you click on the tag 'Metal Etching' it will bring up all the etching posts.

I do recommend ferric chloride to anyone who wants something less agressive, or who have children and don't want the muriatic acid.

Stephanie Lee has a tutorial on her site on using the hydrogen peroxide / muriatic acid combination and I have some links to other sites. I love the results of this method but real care must be taken when using it.

Gaea, I'm going to take my own advice and make several of the round designs and try them in the dapping block.

Thanks for the kind words - I think they look very old and well-used, and that's my favorite look!