The brass etching is common in creating beautiful designs and markings on the alloy for commercial and aesthetic purposes.
An alloy of copper and zinc, brass has a golden-yellow color and finds its place among soft metals. Hence it is often a go-to metal for most hobbyist etchers who want to etch their favourite emblem or sport a metallic monogram.
The etching is a process that works to create designs and engrave markings on different materials like metals such as brass, steel, Aluminum and materials like glass.
Glass etching is a process that creates designs on glass and makes it translucent. This process is applicable and widely used in both, commercial and domestic sectors.
In this article, we will discuss a common method for glass and brass etching and some tips to ensure safety during the process.
For etching your favourite designs on brass, you will need a sheet of brass with a uniform and optimum thickness.
The brass etching process uses different acidic etchants for etching, however, Ferric Chloride is often the go-to choice for most etchers.
Ferric chloride is easily available. You can get it in powdered form, or you can buy a pre-made ferric chloride solution. Ferric chloride works best on metals and etches them quickly without inducing any harm to the etchers, given that they are careful enough to follow the necessary precautions.
Before you start brass etching, however, you must wear proper protective equipment to prevent potential accidents. Use Nitrile gloves, dust mask, and protective goggles along with a layer of protective cloths to prevent acid spill on your garment.
The brass etching process follows these steps:
Before you can begin with the etching process, you need a design that you will etch. Now, with designing, you have two options. You can either put your drawing skills to test and draw the design yourself or you can make the design on a computer and print it on an OHP acetate sheet.
You can use an OHP marker or a sharpie if you are confident about your drawing skills and have chosen to draw the design yourself.
However, if you went to the computer for help with the design, you might want to use proper vector illustration software because you want the design in two colors, black and white.
In print, the black area of the design will be covered with toner while the white area will be empty. In this way, when you will place the printed acetate on the metal sheet and put it in acid, the acid will etch the metal below the blank area while the toner, which is essentially made of the ground polymer, will protect the metal from the etchant. Thereby creating the required design.
Because the toner is an important part of designing for brass etching, so only use a laser printer to print the design on the OHP acetate. You can also print the design on regular paper and then get it photocopied on the OHP sheet.
You can either buy the brass plate in the size that you require or cut it yourself, it’s not much of a task. Once you’ve got your hands on the right-sized plate, it's time to clean.
Any grease or dirt left on the metal will hinder the transfer of design from acetate on the metal. Therefore, scrub-clean the metal plate thoroughly using dishwashing soap and then wipe it with acetone and let it dry.
For transferring the design from the acetate sheet to the metal plate, you need heat. You can use a common house-hold iron for heating the design off the acetate sheet and onto the metal. But make sure that the iron does not contain water.
Switch on the iron and crank it up to the highest heat option. Let it heat up. Meanwhile, place the metal plate on a hard surface and stick the design-printed acetate on it using masking tape to ensure that it stays in place. Cover this metal plate with paper, like newspaper or crepe paper.
Place the hot iron on the newspaper and move it around. Don’t keep it still.
The design should come off the sheet and onto the metal after about a minute of heating. Be careful not to heat and melt the acetate sheet. So, after a minute or so, remove the iron from the metal and allow it to cool a little.
Once cooled, start to peel the acetate off the metal. It should come off easily. However, you may notice that some pieces of the OHP paper have stuck to the metal piece. That’s not a problem. Just soak the metal piece into some water and let it sit for a while. Then take it out and scrub the paper lightly.
Inspect the design closely, if it is perfect, great! We can move ahead. If not, you can cover the imperfections using an OHP marker or redo the printing process using a new printed-sheet.
For brass etching, fill a plastic container with ferric chloride solution. Cover the non-etching parts of metal with masking tape and dip the metal plate into the etchant. Let it sit for a while, maybe an hour or so will. Keep checking the depth of the etched design with a gloved finger. Once you think it has etched enough, you can remove it from the acid.
Rinse the brass plate thoroughly after removing it from the etchant. As for the etchant, you can either store and reuse it. If, however, you wish to discard it, make sure to neutralize it with an alkali first and filter out the copper precipitates that form on neutralization.
Glass etching, also known as French embossing, is a technique to create a design on the surface of the glass. There are different methods for etching design on the glass. But acid etching is most common and similar to brass etching that we discussed above. The acid etching process may use liquid acid, acidic gas, or acid-based cream etchant.
Since cream etchant is easy to buy and use, that is why we will use that to describe the glass etching process below. This glass etching process follows these steps:
Just like in brass etching, in glass etching to you need to start with a design. You can print or draw your favourite design on an adhesive vinyl sheet or contact paper.
After you have your design on the paper, cut it out using scissors or a paper cutter. Make sure to keep your cutting precise if you want a sharply-etched design.
Once you have an appropriately sized glass, you can begin the etching process by cleaning the glass first.
The glass needs to be squeaky-clean to ensure that the vinyl sheet sticks to it nicely. Wipe the glass clean with a glass cleaner and microfiber cloth and finish it off with an alcohol wipe.
Stick the vinyl sheet on the glass and smooth it out to ensure that no air bubbles are trapped between the sheet and the glass surface.
Apply the etching cream onto the design and let it sit for about a minute. After a minute is over, rinse the cream off with water. Once the glass is free of etching cream, remove the vinyl, and voila! You have etched glass.
The rinse water contains acidic etchant, and you don’t want to dump that down the drain. So, collect it in an HDPE basin, neutralize it with an alkali and then dispose of it off.
Be sure to wear the right protective equipment like gloves, goggles, masks, and don’t inhale the fumes of the acid or those coming off from the neutralization process.
Glass and brass etching are widely used in the commercial sector as well as by hobbyist etchers to create their favourite designs. Brass is a malleable alloy of copper and zinc, and glass is a soft, non-crystalline solid. Therefore, they can be easily engrave using acids like ferric chloride.
However, ferric chloride is maybe harmful. So, while performing glass or brass etching yourself, you need to ensure that you are wearing gloves, a mask, goggles, and the right protective equipment. Moreover, avoid inhaling the acidic fumes and try to do etching in a well-ventilated area.
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