A customer has asked that I apply an “acid” finish to some
pieces I’m making for her. She saw this finish at the Las Vegas
show and showed me a piece that was somewhat similar. The effect
was like a subtle but slightly glittery sandblast finish, and
extremely even regarding texture and color. Quite nice. Any ideas
how this type of proprietary finish is attained?
THANKS!!!
Jeffrey Everett
Jeffrey: I tried etching on silver awhile ago with nitric and
didn’t agitate it often enough. What I got was (in the etched
areas) a cool texture that looked like hammering with a tiny
hammer, very even. you might try an experiment putting into acid
with no agitation and see what effect it has on gold. Dave
www.opendoor.com/stephensdesign/crystalguy.html
Crystalguy Art Jewelry, Magical Art Jewelry for the Enlightened Mind
Hey Jeffery,
I have used acid to get an interesting and uniform finish on
gold by first masking off the areas I didnt want exposed with
varnish. Then I immersed the piece in aqua regia (four parts
hydrochloric - one part nitric) for a few minutes. When the depth
was attained, I then electropolished the piece using the dyna-pro
system at 2 volts. This gave a very uniform color with a grainy
texture and it was bright… I’m not sure this is what you are
wanting, but you might try it on a scrap piece of gold.
Ken