I don’t know if this adds anything to the conversation, but here
goes.
I noticed a comment about brushing away buildup so that stepping
does not occur. When I was taking classes the teacher always had
us suspend the object being etched upside down in the acid so
that particles would fall out as they were dissolved. That
seemed to make sense. One of the students took a project home
and set the container of acid with object suspended on top of
their dryer which was running. He came back at the normal
time to find the object completely eaten through. We were
working in copper and brass at the time. He played with the
process and began having consistantly good results. Apparently
mild vibration shakes out buildup and speeds up the process.
Larry Hammons
Cheyenne Wyoming
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When I was taking classes the teacher always had
us suspend the object being etched upside down in the acid so
that particles would fall out as they were dissolved.
I do something similar when I am etching with Feric Cloride. If
my object is flat I applie a pice of contact paper to the back
of my object to act as a resist and save myself the bother of
apling Asphaltum or whatever to bothe sides of the Object. Then
after appling the resist to the top and edges and scrying out my
desighn, I pirce a small hole in the contact paper and thread a
pice of dentil folss threw the hole so I can suspend my pice
verticly. The dentil floss would probably act as a good handle
to remove a pice that was upside down in an etching tray, but I
have never tryed this. It only just ocured to me.
isaac
Apparently mild vibration shakes out buildup and speeds up the
process.
Yes, we have two setups at my school, one with a magnetic
stirrer and another with and aquarium type pump in it to agitate
the solution (of course, this type of agitation makes it
necessary to have a top on the tank while etching).
Susan